Welcome to the Family
by Ringshadow
Summary: Thor just wants the weekend off, and passed Loki into Tony Stark's hands for babysitting, hoping Tony can get through to him. Loki quickly gets pulled into the mad current of Tony Stark's life, and finds out that this particular Avenger doesn't hate him. Far from it, really. Toki Tony/Loki and Peppertoki Pepper/Tony/Loki
1. Chapter 1

Welcome to the Family

Chapter One

It was his hair that caught Tony Stark off guard. It'd grown since he last saw it, dark thick waves now going past his shoulder line. Of course, it'd been most of a year since Loki had thrown him through a window. Now, watching Loki pace through the room where the fight had taken place to stand in front of a window and stare out it, leaning on it and ignoring them, he was not happy with the situation.

So he turned his attention to Thor, who was standing at the bar leaning on it, watching Tony. Tony opened a beer and handed it to him without thinking about it. "So, I'm not going to argue you seeing your girl. I know you don't come here as often as you'd like so yeah. What I don't get is him." He gestured at Loki while rummaging for the best brandy he had on hand, which given his tastes was a particularly fine vintage.

"He is my responsibility and I do not like how he is being treated." Thor drained some of the beer, seeming strained.

"He's a prisoner." Tony found a proper snifter for the brandy then saw Thor's face. "Oh."

"They wanted to sew his mouth shut."

He couldn't even say anything to that.

"Eventually they put him in the quiet places. He hates it. But it's better than other options." Thor killed the rest of the beer in a long, drawn out gulp. "He needs a glimmer of hope, Man of Iron. I need a glimmer of hope. I'm hoping you're willing to provide that."

"You're worried about him." He was pouring the brandy.

"He hasn't spoken to me since what happened. Not a word. Nothing. He barely will even look at me. He is my brother."

"Ouch, but how can I help?"

"I need you to watch him while I visit Jane. You're good with people."

Tony capped the brandy and looked at him. "Have we met?"

"You know what I mean. You understand people. You can get to them and make them understand." He looked over at Loki, who was still pretending that Thor and Tony didn't exist. "Just take care of him for me. Make sure he eats plenty and feels some sun."

"And we're controlling him how?"

"Did you see the collar around his neck?" When Tony nodded, Thor held up a wrist bound with a silver cuff bracelet. "He has to stay within ten meters of this or it will cause him excruciating pain. This button here," he shifted a nearly invisible cover up with his nail to show a switch, "Does the same, if necessary."

"Oh. Wow. How does it work?"

"This is not the time. It's also draining nearly all his magic."

"Nearly all?" Tony lifted an eyebrow.

"He can still change his clothes as he desires. Will you do this for me, Man of Iron?"

"Yeah, of course I will." He watched the bracelet get removed from Thor's wrist, somehow, then clapped around his own where it fit snugly in spite of their size difference. He couldn't see how it was even removed. "Say hi to your girl for me."

"I will send your regards." He set the empty bottle down and crossed the room, talking to Loki. And Loki completely, utterly ignored him. Like he didn't exist. Tony didn't hear what was being said, but Thor's face was pained when he turned away and walked out on the balcony, spinning Mjolnir and gone just like that.

And Loki… changed. He didn't relax, exactly, but his shoulders seemed to sag a bit and he put his forehead to the glass. Whatever was going through Loki's head, he was glad Thor was gone.

"Jarvis? Add Loki to the headcount." Tony said after a long moment, watching the other man.

"Very good sir. Any special security measures?"

"Not at this time. Oh, and let's not tell SHIELD about this."

"Understood sir."

He picked up the snifter and walked over slowly, leaning his shoulder on the glass a few feet away and offering the brandy. "I suspect you want a drink."

Loki looked at him out of the corner of his eye, then pushed away from the glass and took the snifter, cradling it in his hand and looking at him. "You remembered, Stark."

"So you can talk." He lifted an eyebrow.

"Yes." Loki's voice hadn't changed. The shadows under and around his eyes seemed even deeper, his face maybe thinner. He'd gone through some shit, if Tony was any judge, and Tony had been through enough shit in his life he could judge it for the Olympics. "What was my brother telling you?"

"He's worried about you. Said you won't talk to him at all."

"He gagged me. That made his opinion of what I have to say more than sufficiently clear."

Ice cold motherfucker, Tony thought to himself. Damn. But Loki was turning, regarding the room he was standing in, and damn if it didn't make him a bit paranoid. And now he could see the collar, a carved silver ornate thing hugging Loki's neck tightly, a small green stone front and center that glittered a bit. He wondered if that was Thor's doing, making sure the restraint matched Loki's clothes.

"It is like I was never here, and nothing ever happened." Loki finally said.

"We finally finished repairs a few months ago." Tony watched him walk to the door and open it, staring outside, the wind picking up his hair.

"The city has moved on as well, I see." He sipped his brandy then shut the door. "Just like my brother. Bringing me to the place of my defeat to give me to one of those that defeated me, for babysitting."

"I don't like this either, but I'm going to try my damnedest to do what Thor asked." He heard the elevator chime, looking that way and seeing Bruce walk in.

"Hey did Thor come… by…" Bruce stopped short, looked at Loki, then at Tony. "I suppose the answer to that is yes."

"Correct. I'm taking him off Thor's hands until Monday, it would seem. What is today, Thursday?"

"Yes, sir." Jarvis said. Loki drifted through the room, still working on the brandy, a ship with no port.

"I take it we won't be telling Fury about this." Bruce said, rubbing his face with one hand.

"That would be a no. Hey. Loki." Tony continued when Loki actually acknowledged him. "I have work to finish up so I guess you're coming with us."

"I hardly have a choice in the matter." Loki replied, and finished the brandy.

The elevator ride was tense. Loki was watching them both but seemed largely disconnected from the world still, following them into one of the labs. When offered a chair he took it and spun it, sitting astride it and leaning his folded arms and chin on the back, watching them. Those fucking green eyes, Tony thought. No one had a right to have eyes like that.

"Jarvis where's my music?" Tony wanted to know, and his metal playlist came back up, loud enough Loki startled and stared around in confusion before returning to the pose he'd been in, watching the other two.

Once Tony and Bruce started talking again, time flew. Projected wireframes were brought up, concepts hashed out, math done. And Loki watched it all, barely understanding most. To be left in the care of Stark, of all people. And to just be ignored like he was another Midgardian! Still, being tuned out by these two let him watch them work. They nearly stood on top of each other as they talked and argued, the words flying by. To think this was the monster of a man who had come as close as anyone had ever had to ending him, small and vulnerable, dressed in clothes Stark had probably picked and totally comfortable with how hands-on, how close Stark was to him.

He was starting to wonder about the nature of these two when the music suddenly quieted and the voice from above spoke again. "Captain Rogers is at the door to the lab, sir, and he says he has pizza."

Tony grinned, taking off his VR gloves. "Well, let him in Jarvis."

Then Captain America walked in, not in uniform though and bearing several large flat boxes, the scent of food was following him. Loki's insides clutched painfully and he made himself ignore it. "Hi, Tony, Bruce, Pepper asked me to check in and make sure you… ate…" He trailed out, then cleared his throat. "Hi, Loki."

"Well met." Loki replied, not moving.

"Thor has a hot date." Tony said, already investigating the pizza boxes. "And we can take care of ourselves you know."

"And how many times have I found you both passed out in the lab?" Steve moved the boxes to a mostly empty lab table, lining them up and opening them up. "Besides, I'm not complaining am I?"

Whatever Tony's reply was muffled by a huge bite of pizza, Bruce coming over and helping himself. Once he'd swallowed, he looked at Loki. "Hey. Dig in if you're hungry." Loki stayed where he was a few minutes, then stood at stepped over. Same outfit he'd been wearing before, Tony finally realized. Not the horned helmet version, the version he'd been wearing in the helicarrier before all manner of shit had broken loose. He had to wonder about the significance. It was regal certainly but it looked like multiple layers. "You know, we're in a heat wave right now…"

"I shall endure." Loki was eyeballing the pizzas. "I do not understand the food of this world." That said, he picked up a slice and started eating, having watched the others do so enough he had the general idea.

"So Pepper told you to keep an eye on us? Again?" Bruce wanted to know.

"You should just start expecting it." Steve advised once he's swallowed, taking off the messenger bag he was carrying and setting it aside for the moment. "What are you working on?"

"It's green power related." Tony was already back at work, wearing one VR glove, the other holding his pizza.

Loki helped himself to a second and third slice to get the full spectrum of pizza that had been brought, returning to his chair. The food was heavy, greasy, hardly fit for a prince, but in his hunger he decided it would do.

Steve, meanwhile, had also grabbed a chair, pulling up one leg so the edge of his heel was propped on the seat. From his messenger bag he pulled out his drawing binder and a charcoal pencil, settling in and pondering the room before starting to draw, smiling to himself.

Tony tried to keep an eye on Loki as he worked, but the other man just wasn't doing anything. Just sitting there, that vague smile on his face now that he'd eaten, watching them all. This worried him because anytime Loki was happy to be there, things went to shit at a rapid pace. But, it was Stark Tower, and Loki was in some kind of magical collar, and they were in the high security labs.

Plus Tony was standing next to the Hulk. So, no real worries to be had.

And realistically, these were the happiest kind of moments for him, besides quality time with Pepper Potts. When he was working with Bruce and Steve was here too, because Bruce understood him and what he was talking about but came around it from an entirely different direction, and had no problem contesting his theories and it resulted in this delightful push and pull of the mind that had already resulted in many great patents and ideas for later. And Steve, who didn't even try to keep up anymore, just there and grounding, jumping into the conversation again if he picked up on it.

Then Loki stood quietly, still in the background, and picked his chair up, stepping across the room carrying it and parking it next to Steve, returning to the position he'd been in, straddling the chair with his arms and chin propped on the back of it, but looking directly at Steve and watching what he was drawing. Not saying anything, just watching.

"You have artist's hands." Loki said quietly, watching the charcoal drawing build on the paper. Steve had already turned the page a few times to get to blank paper. The current image was Tony and Bruce mid discussion, and he was picking out details in it, the crease Bruce got between his brows when he talked seriously, the curls in Tony's hair.

"Thanks?" Steve finally said, looking at him. Loki had his forearms laced on the back of his chair and his face resting on them, looking at his binder.

"I saw you looking at me earlier. Did you draw me?"

"Yeah, uh, I did." So he flipped a few pages back. Most of the picture was dominated by Loki in the chair, and along the top edge some details were drawn separately, focused on. Eyes, hands, collar, a note about the particular way the material he wore flowed and folded around him.

"I keep asking him for a piece for the rumpus room but he refuses." Tony said, watching this.

"Well, I suppose you do appreciate art, Stark, though this music does make me wonder." Loki looked at him. "It shifts rather wildly."

"It's metal music." He shrugged. "Thanks for being pleasant to him, Steve."

"He's a prisoner. Prisoners are supposed to be treated with respect." Steve turned back to what he was working on. "A fact people forget far too often."

"Tell me about it." Tony grumbled, then thought of something. "Hey, Loki. When your brother and I destroyed part of a forest by way of saying hello until Steve beat some sense into us both, were you laughing?"

"Harder than you can possibly imagine." Loki smiled, that strange satisfied cat smile that Tony remembered.

"Well. Fair enough." Hell, Tony thought, he would have been too. Nothing was funnier than the heroes fucking up. "Hey, Jarvis, we've been stuck in Metallica for a while. Put on some Sevenfold or something."

"Understood sir, Avenged Sevenfold, lining up Black Sabbath afterward." And the music changed.

And out of the corner of his eye, partway through a song, he caught Loki's foot tapping. And grinned.

Eventually they all left the lab, Bruce parting to go to his apartment and Tony heading to his, trailing Steve and, of course, Loki. At some point Loki had acquired one of the pizza boxes and was working on the last slice as they walked into the room. Tony had to wonder if they were feeding him on Asgard, then again, almost anyone in the tower could eat half a pizza without blinking. He'd seen Steve eat a whole one after a workout once, but Steve's metabolism was so high that wasn't much of a feat.

Then Loki had stepped to the bathroom, so Tony flopped in a chair. "Jarvis? Can you keep track of the distance between Loki and I and make sure I don't get more than ten meters away from him?"

"Easily, sir."

"Oh, so that's the trick." Steve said, rummaging in Tony's fridge and coming out with a Coke. "What do you think?"

"He can hear us, you know." Tony replied. "That said, if he's this behaved the whole trip it'll be easy. But then he's, what, God of Mischief or something right?"

"That would depend if we are talking about Norse mythology sir." Jarvis intoned.

"Alright, lay it on me."

"Loki in Norse mythology is a god or jotunn, or both. He's fathered several children. He is a shapeshifter, and while some records say he is a trickster god, others contest that."

"What, Stark, didn't do any reading on me?" Loki was standing in the doorway, drying his hands on a towel. The long jacket he had been wearing was gone, leaving what appeared to be a long sleeved top, a vest of some kind, and pants. All perfectly matching.

Classy bastard, Tony thought. Built radically different from Thor, too. Loki was lanky skinny muscle. "Apparently not enough but I remember something about you giving birth to a horse."

Steve about choked on his Coke.

"All of the legends and stories about me and you remember the one about Sleipnir." Loki did that smile and just barely shook his head, walking over to Tony's personal bar. "Can I trouble you for another brandy?"

"Help yourself, within reason. Don't drink the entire bar." Tony twisted on the sofa and leaned on the arm to watch him. Loki walked like he owned the place, which is exactly how he'd walked right before things had gone to hell. He suspected that was just how he walked. "And you have to admit that sticks out a bit."

"Are you looking for tips in stallion seduction?" Loki sounded profoundly disinterested with this topic of conversation, having found a decanter of brandy, he was now hunting for an appropriate glass.

Tony lifted an eyebrow, then looked at Steve when he dissolved into a fit of coughing, getting soda out of his windpipe. "You okay over there?" When Steve nodded, he looked back to Loki. "No, not as such, what do you think I am?"

"From observation, you're a hedonist."

Tony blinked. "Guilty as charged. And you are a shit."

"I was under the impression that you rather enjoy someone verbally challenging you." He was now pouring himself a generous drink, not bothering to look at Tony. Steve had gotten his drawing supplies back out, charcoal pencil dancing on the page nearly frantically.

He couldn't argue that, either. "You're considering this whole trip intel, aren't you."

"I'm considering it high comedy." Loki closed the decanter. "I will not pretend to begin to understand Midgard or Midgardians. I will also not pretend to understand how you won."

"Your first statement explains the second." Steve said. "Understanding your enemies is the key to defeating them."

"Frankly you made a bad bet when the odds were strongly against you." Tony said. "I also think you underestimated the scale of the problem. New York is, what, a thousandth of a percent of the world's population?"

"0.0012, rounded, sir." Jarvis said. "Those statistics might be old, however."

"Yet it was a small group that fought me." Loki swirled his brandy, staring into it.

"I don't know if anyone has told you this, but the powers that be were about to sacrifice the entire island of Manhattan and the rest of New York as well to take your ass out." Tony stood and moved to lean on the back of the couch. "Trust me. In the end, it was just a question of collateral damage. You're still really pissed about this."

"And you aren't?" Loki's gaze was sharp, staring at him over the glass as he took a sip.

Tony looked around, looked at Steve, shared a shrug, looked at Loki. "No. I'm not happy about all of it. Phil Coulson's death stung. But I got some of the best friends of my life out of what happened. Collateral damage was relatively minor, given the sheer damage done to some of the buildings. So, uh, I guess we all came out ahead in the game."

"Agreed." Steve said.

Loki's expression was sour, pacing back and forth and stopping to stare out one of the windows.

"Just say it." Tony said, moving to the bar himself and putting together a scotch on the rocks.

"I don't know why my brother brought me here. To show me I did nothing, I suppose. Not only did I do nothing but I'm in an even worse position." He leaned his forehead against his glass, a little off balance giggle escaping him.

"Former employers pissed?" Tony wanted to know, and saw the look. "Hey it was kind of obvious you weren't working alone."

"I don't see how it's any of your concern."

Tony did a wide armed shrug, one arm holding his glass. "Got something better to talk about?"

"I can just decline to talk, you know."

"Guess you're right." Tony went back to the couch, not facing the other man anymore. "What did Thor mean by the quiet places?" He didn't have to see Loki to know that the other man had turned to look at him.

"Hell." Loki's voice was quiet, and he took a long drink of his brandy, walking over and easily jumping the back of the couch and sitting in one motion. Tony watched because Loki moved like a gymnast, and also because it put Loki sitting about three feet away from him. "It's a never ending forest glade of peace and silence. No way out. Nothing to fight. The only pleasure is there are no storms."

"You have a curious notion of hell." Steve said, turning a page and starting anew, glancing between his paper and them.

"He doesn't mean the Christian hell, Steve." Tony replied. "Think of it more as the exact opposite of Valhalla."

"It is dreary, boring, infuriating and mind numbing. Nothing to occupy me but the thought that it was my brother's idea of protecting me." Loki glared at Steve.

"You would have rather had your mouth sewn shut?" Tony wanted to know, and was rewarded with a well covered wince. "Uh huh…"

"I do have something else to talk about." Loki pointed without looking, fingertip just short of Tony's reactor. "That."

Tony made himself not react, he was too busy being satisfied that he'd touched a lot of nerves. So this is what Thor meant, he thought, beat Loki over the head with _Thor love Loki_ until it sank in. Like "Sloth love Chunk" but more Norse, and much better looking. "You didn't do much intel work before starting shit, did you?" He sipped his scotch.

"That's neither here, nor there, Stark. I'm curious why you always have it on."

"In. Always have it in." Tony made a length approximation gesture with his free hand. "It's that deep."

Loki looked at his hand, then his chest, then his hand. "Well that does rather underscore the question."

"Ask an obvious question, get an obvious answer."

"You need it somehow and are declining to tell me details." Loki finished. "You're not very good at this game."

"Hi, my name is Tony Stark, and I used to specialize in making explosions. Very large, precise explosions. Subtle is not in my dictionary."

Loki stared at him for a long moment, gaze so heavy Tony could almost physically feel it. "I think I perhaps would have liked you more before you changed."

"Doesn't surprise me at all. Behave yourself and we'll go blow something up on Sunday."

"… We have an accord."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Tony jumped awake, whole body seizing and staring at the ceiling. Seconds ticked by as his heart hammered in his ears, and he sat up, forcing himself to breathe slowly and evenly as a chill racked his body. He was soaked in sweat, and the dream still hung at the edge of his memory. "Jarvis. Time?"

"Three sixteen in the morning, sir. Loki appears to be asleep on your sofa."

That had been one of the awkward things about the distance limit: He couldn't just dump Loki in a guest suite. Luckily it was less than ten meters between his couch and his bed. Loki didn't seem to care.

He staggered to his feet beside the bed, pulling on sweats and a tank top then rummaging in his bedside drawer ("Just over nine meters, sir") and finding the kitbag he was looking for before going to his bedroom door and opening it.

His apartment was silent, except for the low crackle of the fireplace ("Loki asked if I could turn it on, sir, I did not see the harm"). Stepping out into the living room, he found Loki apparently asleep as described, curled up facing the fire. He padded by and went to his balcony, stepping out and leaving the door cracked before sitting down cross legged on the tile at the edge of the distance allowed, digging into the kit bag for his rolling papers.

Loki blinked awake and listened to Stark walk by. Quiet step for a Midgardian, especially considering who it was. He heard a door slide open and closed and sat up slowly, looking over the top of the sofa and seeing Stark sitting outside in the dead of night. He was wondering what was going on, as Stark's back was to him, then he saw a flick of fire, a lighter.

He got up and walked slowly across the room, not surprised when Stark looked over his shoulder and saw him coming, but didn't really react. So he opened the door and stood there, suddenly in the roar of wind and a large city. "Do you sleep, Stark?"

"No." Tony replied, shifting to one side and waving. "It's a big balcony come on out."

Loki stepped out slowly and decided against the chairs, instead sitting on the side, leaning back against the wall and facing Tony, only a few feet away. "You don't sleep?"

"Do you?" Tony took a drag on the spliff slowly, held it, felt the slow curl of relaxation work down his back bit by bit, answering the slow downshifting of his brain. He exhaled the smoke, seeing Loki wrinkle his nose a bit at the smell.

"I suppose I sleep enough."

"Lucky." He rubbed his eyes, and felt the heavy poison green gaze Loki had on him. "I have PTSD."

"You have what?" Loki blinked.

"Oh, wow. Uh. It's a Midgardian mental problem. We go through something and the brain can't adapt and it's… not pleasant."

"And you still fight?"

"Life goes on." He took another drag. "I'm not alone."

There was another long silence, Loki looking out over the city. "I thought you were all mewling, passive sheep."

"For every person willing to flow with the crowd there's another that will poison the well just to make a statement." He blew a smoke ring, head tilted to one side.

It hadn't been Tony's idea to go on medicinal cannabis. After all, the last thing the media needed to get ahold of was that Ironman smoked pot. But he'd started drinking. A lot. He'd known he was starting to have a problem and then Pepper was there with a prescription, and that strong understanding stare. And he'd been embarrassed, but hell, he liked weed. And it helped. He had been able to cut back the alcohol, which had been the goal, and he found that smoking helped him.

"What is that racket?" Loki suddenly asked, leaning to look out at the busy streets.

Tony heard it a few minutes later, cheerful whoops and cheers that quickly became an understandable "WOO HOO FUCK YEAH!" Then something blurred by the balcony, swinging by up his tower.

"What. Was that." Loki's voice was flat.

"Spiderman." Tony blew out smoke.

And, as if cued, he appeared again, lowering from above hanging upside down in that odd way he did, hands hanging onto the web with his feet also clinging. "That is a filthy terrible habit you have there, Stark."

"Hey brat." Tony grinned. "Take a seat."

Spiderman looked at Loki, then at Tony. "Who's tall skinny and gothic?"

"Loki, this is Spiderman. Spiderman, this is Loki, he's cool."

Loki looked at Tony, baffled.

"Loki. Oh what have you gotten into now?" Spiderman twisted and crouched on his toes on the railing then hopped down, sitting on Tony's other side and rolling his mask partly up, accepting the spliff from Tony and taking a drag.

"Is this another of New York's heroes?" Loki was disbelieving.

"Yes, yes he is." Tony patted Spiderman's near shoulder. "He missed the fun with you."

"Couldn't get out of class." Spiderman sulked and passed it back.

"How the hell old are you?"

"What's the line from V is for Vendetta? Something about asking a masked man who he is?" Spidey seemed to peer at him.

"How does that outfit protect you? It looks thin as silk." Loki was staring at Spiderman.

"Oh, uh, it doesn't' really protect me. Just my identity. I mostly dodge."

"He is one agile mother fucker." Tony informed Loki. "He can bend in places most people don't have places."

"Do you always treat your friends this way?" Loki wanted to know.

"Well… yeah." He snorted smoke and passed back to Spiderman. "Hey, I'm keeping Loki company this weekend. Can you pick up the small crap?"

"As I can, though this is not helping my motivation." Spiderman giggled, then sirens howled in the distance and he passed it back, standing and pulling his mask back down. "Nice to meet you Loki." And he was gone, diving off the balcony and swinging away through the city.

"This, this place." Loki said, voice flat, unable to even get out the full statement.

"I know, right. New York." He wove a hand out over the city. "Amazing place, I'm kind of glad I moved here." He slouched and ended up sitting next to Loki against the wall, but in a much sloppier pose, utterly relaxed.

"You don't hate me at all." His voice was still flat. "Do you?"

"No, why should I?" Tony looked up at him.

"And he didn't either?"

"I think he's actually dealt with bigger assholes than you, no offense. You're not the only swinging dick to try to put holes in this city." Tony patted Loki's near knee.

There was a long silence, during which Tony slouched on Loki a bit, killing the last of the spliff, luxuriating in a mind that had downshifted to an idle. That never happened. Even when he was asleep, math and equations were burning in his brain. Even when he was having sex. Always, his brain chased ideas. And when his brain latched onto something bad, it put him in a bad place very quickly.

So, he smoked a few times a month. And it worked. His mind slowed for a bit and the bad place faded back to his past.

"You need to go back to bed, Stark." Loki finally said, uncomfortable in a distant way but also oddly cheerful, and hungry.

"No, we should eat something first, you're hungry right?" Tony saw the look. "Oh, yeah, you're second hand high. Come on." He stood and offered a hand down, pleased when Loki took it and stood, then let go.

"What does that even mean?"

"Ohhhh boy. Stick around for a while. I will debauch you."

"You think you can debauch an Asgard?" Loki started to laugh then saw Tony's expression, which looked like a man accepting a challenge head on. "…Stark…"

"Don't worry. I'll probably forget this in the morning anyway." And he went back inside, trailing Loki, who was trying his hardest not to be intrigued.

Loki woke up to someone clearing his throat and had to assimilate some information very quickly. One, he had fallen asleep sitting up on Stark's sofa. Fair enough, but Stark was asleep across his lap, chest down and face propped on one his thighs, one arm wrapped around Loki partway, somehow. Every time Stark took a breath, the edge of the reactor in his chest dug into one of Loki's legs, just enough to make it very obvious what it was.

Next was the fact that Steve was standing in front of the fireplace, arms crossed and just looking at them. It was a purposefully neutral stare, the one of someone waiting for an explanation on something.

"If I say it was not my idea… will that improve the situation?" Loki said slowly.

Steve smirked. "Nah it isn't your fault. Tony sleeps like a cat, if he dozes off and someone's nearby they automatically become a Tony pillow."

"I rather wanted to hate this man. He is after all my jailer." He looked down at Tony, sleeping peacefully.

"Having a hard time doing so? Yeah, I get you. I had him all wrong for a long time. He proved me wrong." Steve stepped over and leaned down, ruffling a hand through Tony's hair. "Hey. Tony. Time to get up."

Tony stirred and opened about half an eye, mumbling incoherently as he looked at Steve.

"Do you even know who you're sleeping on?"

So he rolled over partway and stared up at Loki, barely awake and rumpled. There was a long silence, and then he pointed a hand at Loki, sort of. "You have fucking amazing eyes. I mean you know that right?"

"Tony." Steve was trying very, very hard not to laugh.

"I'm going, I'm going." He rolled off and hit the floor, hitched under the armpits and lifted effortlessly to his feet by Steve. "Thanks."

"Oh, ugh. You've been smoking, haven't you." Steve put him to arm's length. "That stuff will kill you."

"Reeeeeeefer maaaaaadness." Tony wiggled his fingers in a rather odd way, then stumbled away to his bedroom, taking off his tanktop as he walked.

Loki staggered to his feet and staggered away, straightening his trousers, his clothes blurring and resetting to knock the dirt and smell of cannabis out, rubbing his face. He was aware of Steve watching him as he sorted himself out, shaking his hair and the tangles falling out, his hair returning to the wave it was usually in.

"Mr. Laufeyson, STOP. Right this moment." Jarvis said sharply.

He turned and faced the ceiling, and in that second it hit. He buckled and howled, and howled, the pain shaking him, yanking his spine. Then he was swept off his feet and moved and as fast as it had started, the pain ended, and he came back to reality, sagging in the arms of a very worried Captain America, who was looking down at him with gentle eyes.

"Ten meters?" Steve asked quietly. "Loki?"

Loki shoved away from him, swearing vibrantly and sagging over the back of the couch, coughing and gagging. "I swear brother… I swear…" He jerked when one of Steve's hands rubbed over his back between his shoulders, hissing. "Don't touch me Midgardian."

Steve held his hands up but stayed close, watching Loki's labored breathing start to smooth out.

"What did I miss?" Tony's voice asked, appearing in the doorway to his bedroom, half dressed and still drying his hair.

"Ten meters, Stark." Loki did that unbalanced giggle.

His eyes widened. "Oh fuck, Loki, that was not on purpose."

"Oh and that makes up for it?" Loki wheeled on him and stomped over it, livid with rage. "Do you have any idea what this thing does to me?"

"Only, you know, in theory." He didn't step back and dropped the towel aside, in jeans and boots. "So, I need a breakfast burrito. Guess you're coming with me."

The taller man's jaw dropped, total incomprehension flickering across his face.

"Look, until someone lets me invent a time machine I can't go back and fix it, and I've been banned from creating holes in time-space for the moment, so you'll just have to accept an apology. I really, seriously, did not mean for that to happen." Tony shoved his hands in his pockets, looking up at him, still not entirely awake. In the background he could see Steve rubbing his palms into his eyes and shaking his head.

"You are the most impossible man I have ever met." Loki fumed, then looked down at the reactor in Tony's chest. Brilliant crisp light and a low hum, he'd seen the light showing through Stark's clothes. A network of old scars cradled the socket of the thing. It was, all in all, a bizarre combination of beautiful and grotesque. "So. This thing, then." He flicked with a finger and saw an answering flicker on Tony's face. "You felt that, didn't you."

"Yes." He stepped away and went to his dresser, finding one of his thick scruffy band shirts, coming back as he put it on.

"Why?"

"Why did I feel it or why do I have it?" Tony cocked his head.

"Stark." Loki folded his arms and narrowed his eyes.

"I feel it because it goes deep into my body and it resonates. Why do I have it? Nothing. Just, you know. Shrapnel that will kill me." Tony patted his shoulder and walked by, and took the opportunity to yank on Loki's hair, then neatly dodged the swat that followed it. "Boy do you blow hot and cold. Steve? Breakfast burritos?"

"No, I have to go. You're going to take him out, seriously?" Steve asked. That brought Loki up short for a moment, looking between them.

"Yeah, he needs to get outside. Don't worry I can handle it."

"Stark, do not toy with me." Loki said, voice low.

He was digging a bottle of water out of his fridge, and looked at Loki. "Huh? Toy with you? I'm hungry and I can't cook for shit. Therefore, I need to leave the tower to get food, therefore you're coming with me. How is that toying with you?"

Loki stormed over, hands tossed up. "All I've done, all I've tried to do, and you want to take me into public?"

"Well, you'll need to change clothes. That's not going to work. But, uh, yeah. I mean you wanted to rule these people you may as well meet them."

Loki was lost. He was trying to play a game and Stark's response was to knock the pieces over. Frustrated, he reached out and fisted a hand into Tony's hair and yanked, leaning the other arm over Tony to trap him against the fridge door. "And how do you like it, Stark?"

And, to Loki's shock, he got no pain reaction or indication of discomfort, rather he got a lazy knowing smile and Tony's pupils expanding out. "Is that a trick question?" Tony's voice was low, almost a purr, and Loki caught another smell suddenly amongst the clean smell of soap and the sharp smell of metal that always seemed to follow Stark around. Lust.

He let go and stepped back, eyes wide. Tony shook a knowing finger at him then tossed him the water bottle, getting another. Loki caught on instinct, still blinking. He could have kept pulling. He probably could have shredded Tony Stark's clothes off and gotten no protest. What he'd meant as an attack, Tony had taken as an entirely different kind of advance. So, what he'd taken as an attack…

"Okay, look. Here's my thing." Tony had opened his water bottle and drank half. "We can spend the next several days going through this. Your anger and paranoia and attempts at setting up whatever games you think you can get away with while on a leash. Or, or… and this is the much more fun option… You can realize you're going to spend several days in the personal care of a narcissistic, hedonist, billionaire. Who'd really like to see you have a bit of fun before we consign you to eternal hippie forests."

He blinked. "I…"

"Your choice. Now, could you do something about your clothes? Hungry, really."

He held his head in his hands, snarling. "Brother, I swear to you…"

"He misses you. That's all." He saw Loki's head snap up. "Just something to think about. Clothes."

He looked down at himself, then at Tony. "And what is so wrong with what I'm wearing?"

"Well, you've got style don't get me wrong." He walked over and wrapped an arm around Loki's shoulders, feeling the taller man jerk a bit as he pulled him in and spoke quietly. "But you'll stick out, and if you want to have some fun and cause some legitimate chaos today, you'll want to blend a little bit better. You understand?"

Loki stared at him for a long moment, and saw a carrot being dangled on a stick that was right within reach. "Yes. Yes I think I do."

"Good man." He released Loki and stepped away, watching with an eyebrow lifted as Loki's clothes blurred and settled into jeans and a short-sleeved t-shirt over a long sleeved shirt. A reasonable imitation of what he'd been wearing the day he got thrown out the window, Tony realized. Loki's boots had stayed, mostly hidden under the jeans, and the collar still showed. "Huh. Neat party trick."

"The collar does stick out a bit, I'm afraid." He allowed a strained half smile.

"Oh, that's a matter of color scheme. Black for the shirt and grey for the long sleeves." He rubbed his chin, watching this happen. "Perfect. You now fit in at any Hot Topic in the world."

"You sure you've got this?" Steve asked, hovering.

"Yeah, I've got it. I owe you a few." He watched Steve go, then turned back to Loki. "Shall we?"

"What is making this device move? I've never understood it."

"Oh, I'm sorry, you wanted it to move?" And Tony spun the wheel, cutting onto the nearest highway ramp and flooring it. One thing he missed about California was the roads. With traffic in New York, he could never get much speed up, even on the highway.

Loki pushed himself back into his seat, eyes wide and one hand clutching his seatbelt. He remembered riding in large, squareish vehicles, but they'd looked and sounded far different than this one, and if he was any judge they were going quite a bit faster than those other ones ever had. "That was a serious question Stark and…" And he trailed out because they were rushing up on a semi-truck.

"Just a moment…" Tony's voice was sing song, dodging nimbly through traffic then exiting the highway again, rejoining city traffic. "There's a machine under the hood that runs on a liquid fuel."

He blinked, looking at Stark and relaxing in his seat a bit. "That seems alarmingly straightforward."

Tony shrugged, eyes on the road, wearing a set of yellow lensed sunglasses he'd become fond of. "I rebuilt my first engine when I was a child."

"You've been doing this your whole life?"

"Well, the math has gotten more complex." He turned a corner, going off memory to find his preferred breakfast burrito joint, which was actually trickier than he figured because usually when he went there he was still in one of his suits. The city was a hell of a lot easier to navigate while flying. So, he got a little lost.

But Loki didn't seem to notice, sinking into the passenger seat of the roadster and staring out at the city around them. At this time of morning on a Friday the city was a roar of life around them. People crowded the sidewalks, traffic was a nightmare. Sirens, somewhere in the distance, though no answering whoop from Spiderman this time around. Tony actually kind of hoped the kid was getting some sleep. He was trying to figure out how to give money to a masked man without compromising said man's identity… Probably SHIELD had some channels he could use, Pepper wouldn't approve of him trying to launder some of his own cash even if it was to help out Spidey… when Loki spoke back up.

"The city looks different from the ground."

"Tell me about it, I almost lost my favorite breakfast joint." He finally got on the right street and managed to find a parking spot, killing the engine and hopping out. "Come on."

"I don't trust this. At all." Loki said, slowly getting out of the roadster and looking around, a bit wild eyed. "I am surrounded by the enemy, Stark."

"Hey. Stop. None of these people are your enemy. I mean if anyone is I am and in case you haven't noticed I haven't given a single fuck today." He was walking and talking, Loki hurrying to catch up and walk beside him. "These are civilians and a lot of them are very nice people, especially once you get to know them."

"Then why am I being stared at?"

He paused with his hand on the door of the restaurant, looking up at Loki, then shook his head and went in. "One, you're with me and I'm a regular here, so there's a bit of 'Who's the guy that gets to run around with Ironman' going on. Two, have you looked at you lately?"

"I have no idea what you're trying to say." Loki finally said. "Are you saying these people appreciate how I look?"

"Why not, I do." Then Tony was chattering rapidfire with the person behind the counter, fist bumping a manager and carrying on for several minutes while he ordered food for both of them. Loki shifted back, watching others in the restaurant come up and greet Stark, some grabbing pictures others just exchanging complicated handshakes or saying thank you.

And he realized he was completely, totally out of his depth. Which was ridiculous. He was a prince of Asgard and a demigod! A trickster, a player of pranks! Even Thor had told him he had a dangerously sharp mind. But this was not Asgard, and these were not his people, and he was caught in the current of the whirlpool of insanity that surrounded Tony Stark. Overwhelmed, dodged, and cowed by a Midgardian he'd once thrown out a window, a fact that Stark didn't even seem all that concerned about.

He wanted to be pissed off. He kind of was, but the situation was beyond his control and it wasn't even malicious. In fact, Stark seemed set in simply taking him out on the town before he was returned to a silent, peaceful place he hated. And he found he was at odds with himself, one side raging about the sheer lack of respect and care Stark showed, the other side willing to try to relax and reach out and take the hand that Stark was offering.

Not that he was going to forgive him for the pain a little bit ago.

He was startled out of his reverie when Tony pushed a tray laden with food into his hands and drug him over to a table by the window, sitting down heavily. "Thor likes to eat these and walk around but you don't seem that type."

"No, I don't particularly like wearing my food." He sat down gingerly, staring at what was on his tray before going for the foam cup first, watching how Tony opened it before opening it himself, watching steam escape. "So… I must say, I didn't see you as being the sort to be interested in your fellow man."

"Really." Tony drained some of the fresh coffee, barely feeling his mouth getting burned he was so used to it then unwrapping the end of the breakfast burrito, digging in and watching Loki follow suit. Fucking hell, had the Asgardian even ate the last time he was on this planet? "What are you basing that on?"

Loki didn't answer for several moments, chewing slowly. He wasn't even sure what he was eating but it was spicy and salty, with some kind of meat laced through… eggs, he thought, and he kept eating because his insides ached, because food was a rare luxury in his prison, and because it was strangely delicious. "Do I have to quantify it?"

"I dunno?" Tony sat back, chewed a bit, swallowed, then continued. "You're not the first one to say something like that. I scared the hell out of Steve. It took him a long time to get used to how I am with Bruce."

"I noticed. You're… tactile. You want your hands on everything. Everyone." Loki gave him a narrow look, not adding the 'even me' that was obviously there.

"Touch is one of the ways I figure things out." He shrugged. "But, hell, no offense but I'm not going to let my sexuality get judged by someone who gave birth to a horse."

Loki almost choked on his burrito. "Tactful, Stark."

"Hey, I think I have a point." He grinned.

Anything Loki would have said was interrupted by someone banging on the window by them, and he found himself looking at three rather attractive Midgardian women, waving frantically at Tony. Tony grinned and lifted his hand to wave back, and one snapped a picture with her phone, another pulling her shirt up and showing a belly button piercing that had the Avengers "A" dangling from it. Tony laughed and applauded, and the women left, blowing kisses.

"Why does everyone know you?" Loki finally asked.

"Oh, I was in the media before this." He used the hand not holding the half-finished burrito to drum on his reactor. "Those were the playboy CEO days. Now I'm just in more mainstream news rather than gossip rags. Your little party got us a lot of publicity. That said, this thing does rather make me noticeable." He looked down at the reactor, the glow obvious through the shirt material. "We actually put out a shirt that had a similar design just to try to make people dismiss it a bit, but nope."

"You like the attention." The demigod replied around his burrito. "You nearly roll around like a cat."

"Guilty." There was a long, but not uncomfortable silence, both looking at the window at the city. Loki took the pause to cautiously sip the coffee then drain several long gulps, staring at it in confusion. "First coffee huh."

"This is strangely invigorating."

"Yeah, it's called caffeine. People here used it in several forms to keep awake. Thor's addicted."

"So this is what he was talking about. He may not be entirely stupid."

Tony didn't bother disguising his laughter at that. "I want to take him to a specialty seafood place for dinner sometime soon but he's always here and gone." He saw the blank stare. "Okay, so there's a type of food called crab that has a hard outer shell and one of the ways you get to it is by bashing it with a wooden mallet."

Loki froze, then got that grin that was both terrifying and absolutely delightful. "Can we write Mjolnir on it, somehow?"

"Oh oh OH I do like how you think. We must do this. Yes. Necessary. Maybe when he comes to get you we'll drag his ass to dinner." He could not get the grin off his face.

"Good. I want to see this happen." Loki held the grin.

They were quiet until they both finished eating, Loki following Stark's lead on clearing the table and wandering outside, turning his face up to the sunlight and shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans, just standing there a while.

"Well, my schedule's free for now. I had a concert tomorrow, but…" Tony rubbed his chin, standing by him and letting him take a moment, considering.

"A concert?" Loki wanted to know.

"Yeah, a music show. Not orchestra or anything, this was for one of the bands I listen to." Tony stopped and looked at him, eyes narrowed.

"What?" Loki looked down at him, returning the expression.

"I had a plus-one for the show. Ticket and backstage pass. And no one to go with." He started walking, letting the other man catch up. "I figured I'd have to miss it with you here, but now I'm wondering."

"Stark?" Loki asked. "Are you asking me on a date?"

He shrugged. "Tell you what. I'm going to spend the rest of the day submitting you to the rabble. All the crowds we can find. I'm going to take you to the mall, on the subway, the park, maybe out to Lady Liberty. If you go the day without freaking out, I'll decide I trust you enough to take you to a concert."

"And who is playing at this concert?"

"Sevenfold and some opening bands. You like them." He beeped his roadster open. "Sound like a plan?"

"Stark, you spoil me."

"Please, I bought Bruce a car, a whole lab and his wardrobe."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

"I must admit, Stark, Banner being in your tower did surprise me somewhat."

"What the hell is it going to take to make you call me Tony?" He wanted to know, buying two yoghurt fruit smoothies to refreshingly little reaction from the people making it. The girl on the counter called him by name, that was it. Fine by him. "And how was it surprising?"

"That you keep the beast so close by."

"First of all, Bruce is not a beast. He is a person." Tony handed him one of the cups in passing. Loki had stared blankly at the options so he'd picked one for Loki at random. "He needs to be reminded of that. He needs to be trusted. He's my friend and I trust him with my life."

"You do." Loki lifted an eyebrow, taking a cautious slurp of the smoothie.

"Yes. Implicitly. Second of all, does he make you nervous?"

"He came as close to breaking me as anyone ever has." The Asgardian shrugged with one shoulder, looking around the mall slowly. Tony hadn't been in one in some years and had had to look one up on his phone. "So this is a kind of market."

"Yep, many stores housed in one building." Tony stopped in front of one of the directories, staring at it for a long moment.

"They give you a map then put it behind glass and attach it to the floor." Loki observed.

"Yeah, I guess it is kind of odd." He got his bearings and headed into the main concourse of the mall, walking reasonably slow let Loki look around. "So the Hulk actually did damage huh?"

"… I shall agree to impart that information if you tell me how hurt you were after the battle."

Tony nearly snarked his smoothie. "Loki, I nearly died. I'm human, remember? Carrying a bomb into space in a suit that is not meant for such an environment is not the smartest thing I'd ever done. My whole torso was covered in bruises, I cracked several ribs, and nearly destroyed my suit. As it was, Steve threatened to bench me for weeks."

"I do not understand you. You get hurt so easily and yet you fight." He shook his head, eyes roaming over the storefronts.

"I fight because other people can't and because I'm in a position where I can fight. That's all of us. We all got low, somehow, and decided that we didn't want anyone else there, ever. So we fight." He wove his hand when he saw Loki get a curious look on his face. "Your turn."

"I am sore to this day. My back. It's never recovered." His voice was begrudging.

"Mm. Well, chicks dig scars."

He burst into laughter. "Do they dig your scars, Stark?"

"The only girl I'm worried about digging my scars these days is Pepper." He grinned back though.

They walked through the mall. It was early on in the day and it hadn't been open that long, so they were left in relative peace, though many did watch them go by.

"Lots of clothing." Loki finally said.

"Yeah, we don't have your party trick. Clothing can be self expression, and often is." He replied.

"I've noticed. I was wondering how the flock separated itself. Naturally by plumage." He mused out loud. "Like those two stores, there." He gestured down the wide hallway. "They could not be further apart in their sensibilities."

"Who the hell put a Hot Topic across the hall from an Abercrombie and Fitch?" Tony wondered to himself, looking back and forth between the stores. Then he had a thought. "Okay, now I'm curious. Which one do you like better?"

And, almost naturally, Loki's pointing figure landed on the Hot Topic. "That one."

"Well, of course." He was grinning.

"What, exactly, is so funny?"

"Nothing at all. Come on, tall skinny and gothic. Let's get you a shirt." He grabbed Loki and drug him in that direction, grinning still.

"I do not see why that is necessary. I can change my clothes however I want." Loki protested.

"Call it a souvenir and a crash course in capitalism." He stepped through the big open gates into the store, looking around. "Besides, I have welding holes in half my concert shirts. Hello, ladies."

The staff of the store had frozen mid act, all looking at the two that had walked in. They were not unfriendly looks, Loki noticed, in fact the eyes of those in the store were roaming over them both and he let himself grin at them. Midgardians, he mused to himself.

"Do you need any help?" One of the girls finally asked, managing to be cheerful.

"We'll let you know." Tony was already looking around. "See anything you like?"

"None of this would protect me in a fight…"

"You're missing the point so hard it landed in another dimension of existence." He rubbed his eyes. "Ladies, my friend here is not from around here and is in dire need of some clothes because I am taking him to a concert tomorrow."

"Stark what are you doing?" Loki's voice got tight.

"Putting you in some capable hands." And he grabbed one of Loki's upper arms and propelled in forward and into the arms of the sales clerks, all of whom stared up at him gaping. "Relax. They're not going to hurt you."

"No guarantees of that." One said.

"That was NOT a threat." Tony put in. "Have fun, ladies, I'll be nearby."

"Stark, I swear…!" Loki protested as he was drug toward the back of the store, twitching as one of them got a measuring tape out and was talking. "What do you mean, clothes size?" Tony heard him ask.

"All his clothing has been tailored, ladies, he has no idea." He grinned, hearing the squeals of "oh my god mooooneeeeey" echo through the store. "Tell them your official title, Loki." He made sure to keep within the distance limit, but was looking at shirts to replace the ones he'd damaged.

"Uh, Prince?" He said without thinking, and watched the reaction from the sales clerks, and felt himself smile. Oh, Stark was right, he was going to have fun.

And Tony watched, leaning on one of the displays, and observed he wasn't the only one who liked some attention. Loki nearly glowed and suffered what the clerks put him through grandly as they tried to decide what he'd look good in, and suffered putting on several outfits to work out what he was buying.

"They still make Tripp pants?" Tony remarked. "He's not sixteen, ladies. Something a bit more respectful? And less form hiding?"

They changed tack, Loki offering a raised middle finger in Tony's direction (who the hell taught him THAT he wondered) as he was drug back to the dressing rooms. Shortly later he came out wearing some kind of black cargo pants and shirt that had a crown motif at the top and the words "Keep calm and kill them all." Loki was appraising the shirt with a grin, it looked nearly painted on and it showed just how much _muscle_ the skinny Asgardian had. Tony's hands twitched, and he hooked his thumbs to his beltloops to keep them to himself.

Zooming on Thor's brother. Not good. Okay fine, the exchange of hair tugs was typical Tony, if that got back to him Thor would just shake his head. But Thor had not quite reconciled the whole "Tony swings both ways" thing, kinky Norse god or not, and the first time Tony had crashed leaning up against him the rest of the group had taken video of it to use as blackmail against Thor later. Tony had slept through the hilarity.

But goddamn, no one else was standing where he was, staring at the sexiest villain motherfucker he'd ever seen.

"So. That wasn't too bad was it?" He asked, head tilting.

Loki gave him a stare that said he had seen Tony looking. "I shall endure." And he smiled a bit. "I also like these shirts."

"Doable, get over here so we can pay." He drug a stack of shirts over to the register.

"Um, we were going to grab your other clothes but nothing was… in the dressing room…" Piped up one of the girls, trailing out when both of them looked at her and lifted eyebrows. "Nevermind?"

Tony shrugged, watching the eyerolling dude at the register ring everything up, bringing around the laser gun and scanning the clothes Loki had on then removing the tags and inkburst thing store clothes always seemed to have. "Show them the party trick, Loki."

Loki turned the lifted eyebrow on him. "I'm not sure how it'll work with these clothes on."

"Sounds like you need to find out." Tony turned to lean on the register counter, tapping his card on the counter as what he'd bought was bagged up, the dude hole punching through a whole frequent shopper card. To his amusement, Lady Gaga kicked on on the overhead, and his grin returned. His cheeks were starting to hurt.

Loki shrugged and turned to look at the girls, then cheerfully put his arms out, tilting his head. The stone of his collar brightened to a hot green glow, eyes shining, and the clothing fuzzed out, his traditional outfit layering in bit by bit, spinning on one heel as the long jacket snapped in then striking a remarkably regal pose. The girls nearly died.

…_I'm on the right track Baby I was born this way…_

"Oh my god. You're a superhero too aren't you." One of the girls said.

"That's yet to be seen. He's just visiting." Tony took his card back from the dude on the register, returning it to his wallet then taking the bag loaded up with shirts. There were a few in there for Loki as well, if he got Loki more pants they were going to be tailored custom jeans, so help him. "Shall we?"

Loki clapped his hands and the ceremonial outfit dropped out. "We shall, we shall." And they strolled out of the store, Tony finding himself whistling with the overhead and realizing he'd need his soul cleansed with some metal to stop.

_I'm on the right track baby I was born to be brave…_

'Bad Romance' would have been so much more appropriate, Tony thought, and oh dear god why did he know Lady Gaga songs? Who was playing them in the tower? Gah.

"You know, Stark, I find myself liking you." Loki finally said, striding along in his new digs, the new pants covering most of his boots. "Which seems dangerous."

"Probably is. But when have I ever done anything because it was a good idea?"

Thor jumped when the phone Tony gave him made a peculiar noise he didn't recognize, picking it up and staring at it then just passing it to Jane. "Something from Tony?"

"He sent you a video." She replied, pushing the appropriate touch screen controls to download the video, seeing the bar zip across the screen surprisingly fast for the area they were in then leaning over and pushing play on the video.

"That is Loki. What… what is he doing?" Thor stared at the screen.

"Oh dear god. That's an arcade."

Tony cackled in glee, holding his phone on Loki and trying to clap along at the same time. Of course the video arcade had caught Loki's eye. Of course he'd thrown the two indigenous geeks off the Dance Dance Revolution machine. Of course Loki had made them explain what the strange platform bearing device was and how it worked.

And of course Loki had immediately pushed the machine up to the hardest setting and gunned for the fastest songs. The two geeks stood there with slack jaws.

TWO HUNDRED COMBO! P P P PERFECT!

"Why did I ever have second thoughts about you visiting?" Tony wanted to know, but Loki was lost in the machine, which was absolutely hilarious. He'd already sent a video to Thor because he knew the other Asgardian would never believe it.

The song ended, the machine crowing IT'S A NEW RECORD, and Loki picked up his smoothie and took a long drink. Not even sweating, Tony marveled, as Loki turned and looked at him.

"Simply bizarre." Loki said, turning back to the machine, one leg tapping through the songs so fast the machine slurred.

Demigod, right, Tony thought.

"Is this game supposed to be hard?" Loki wanted to know, landing on his last song of the play through.

"Who the hell is this… guy…" One of the gamers asked Tony, trailing out as he saw the bright glow of the arc reactor in the relative dim of the arcade. "He's not an Avenger."

"Nope. Friend of the family."

"Am I now?" Loki asked, still drinking his smoothie as he played. Tony rolled his eyes. After finishing the song he was on, Loki ignored the name input option and walked away from the machine, looking at Tony, who'd stopped the phone filming when the song had ended, vowing to never delete the footage. Ever. "That was interesting."

"Did you have fun?" Tony wanted to know, picking up the Hot Topic bag again.

"I suppose that I did." He seemed thoughtful, drinking the last of his smoothie and dropping it into a trashcan as they walked out of the Arcade.

"Good. Because I am too." As if cued, his phone howled _You've been THUNDERSTRUCK_ and he took it out of the pocket, looking at the text message on the screen in the typical fatfingered texting that Thor did. "Your brother has never gotten used to that phone."

"My brother? What did he say?"

"I'm honestly not sure." He stared at it. "He thinks I'm crazy, I think."

"Really." Loki said in a tone that Tony got all too often from Pepper, that 'I'm not going to argue that but I'm not going to overtly agree, either' tone.

"Well, he said feed you and make sure you get some sun. I'm making sure you have some fun too, what's wrong with that?" He shoved his phone back in his pocket.

"You notice I've given up arguing." He lifted an eyebrow at Tony.

"Yeah, I did. You're almost enjoyable company now." Tony grinned at him.

"Almost?" Loki clutched his hands to his chest and staggered to the side a bit. "Oh you wound me! Whatever shall I do!"

"Yeah, yeah. Friggin drama queen. Come on, let's see if there's anything else even vaguely amusing here."

The only other store in the mall that Loki found interesting was the bookstore, remarking that he was after all a sorcerer and enjoyed books of all kinds. This led to Tony dragging him through the fiction section, stacking books into his arms, because he didn't figure there was a way to charge an ereader in hippie forest hell.

After that, Tony said screw it and went to Central Park, letting Loki sit on a bench in the sun and read one of his newly acquired books (The Hobbit) while Tony himself just sprawled in the grass with his sunglasses on. He even mostly ignored his phone, relaxing as much as he was ever able, just because Loki seemed genuinely happy.

Loki also flipped off his phone (without looking up from his book) when he took a picture and sent that to Thor as well. He made it his new phone wallpaper.

Eventually they left the park, and he picked up Indian food on the way back to the Tower, amused and not surprised when Loki read and walked behind him, very occasionally offering him a comment about what he was reading. That only lasted until they were at the tower though, when Loki was recruited into helping carry bags of food up the elevator as well as his new books.

"Jarvis, headcount?" Tony wanted to know, pondering elevator buttons.

"Captain Rogers and Bruce Banner are in the lab, no one else is present in Stark Tower at this time."

He grinned and hit the button for the lab levels, getting out hauling the food and stopping when what assaulted his ears but more freaking Lady Gaga. Shaking his head, he found Steve and Bruce in the usual workspace, mustering half a glare. "So you're the one who keeps playing Gaga. I might just have to evict you."

"I have varied music tastes." Bruce stuck out his tongue. "Oh is that from that one Indian place?"

"Yes, your personal favorite." He unloaded the bags on the nearest open counter. "I got Loki some real clothes."

"I see that." Bruce was already eyeballing Loki, who was already back in his book. "Hobbit, huh?"

"He's not very up on our famous literature. I also got him the Dune series, some of it anyway, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and the Neuromancer trilogy." Tony shrugged.

"I'm not so sure I agree with the sentiment on your shirt." Steve remarked to Loki. Loki looked over the top of the book and stuck his tongue out in response before returning to the text.

"It's Metallica." Bruce worked on unpacking the food.

"Actually before you try to eat several pounds of food, I was wondering if you were up for sparring with me. Brought my uniform." Steve folded his arms and looked at Tony seriously. Loki actually looked up from his book, lifting an eyebrow slowly.

Tony grinned. "Yeah, of course. We'll have to work with that distance limitation though."

"Good point, but closer quarters could be a good test of talent. Keep you on the ground a bit more." Steve smiled a bit.

"Yeah right Cap." He kept the grin. "Sorry, Loki, I have to interrupt your reading and go get suited up."

"No. I'm interested in this actually." He gently closed the book, but carried it with as he followed Tony up and out.

Tony himself was in a spectacularly good mood, cheerfully letting Jarvis suit him up in the Mark VII, well aware that Loki was staring at him as it happened. He let himself stretch out and rolled his shoulders just for the pleasure of it, feeling the close hug of the suit around him and looking at Loki through the HUD before putting up the visor and lifting an eyebrow. "You can touch. I mean, Steve's going to be beating on it soon anyway."

Loki stepped over, stroking his hands over the chest plate, then down one of the arms when Tony offered it out. "How heavy is this?"

"Light for what it is but that's still pretty heavy. There's only so much weight I can remove and still be effective." He replied, watching Loki's clever hands trace the joints curiously.

"So that's how you stay in shape. You're always eating." Loki smiled a bit.

"I work out too, you know." He looked over his shoulder, watching Loki pace around back of him slowly then back in front. "Shall we?"

"You're going to spar with Captain America?" Loki paced him, looking at him out of the corner of his eye.

"Yeah, we spar with each other to try to keep in practice. And it's fun." He got on the elevator, as weird an experience as this always was, and pushed the floor for the gym. "We video it sometimes and put it on the internet. Try to be a bit more accessible to the public."

Loki just tilted his head at him, and Tony realized with a jolt of shock that the Asgardian might have no clue what the Internet really is. He didn't even want to try to explain it, so he wove a hand and stepped out on the proper floor, finding Steve in his Captain America togs waiting for him, tossing his shield up and down idly. "Been waiting long?"

"Nah, not long at all." He walked over to the large open area that was closed off with safety glass. Bruce had pulled up two chairs and gestured for Loki to take the other, a laptop computer open on his lap. "So, is this one going on the internet?"

"Might as well, the last one was Clint and Natasha a few weeks ago." He accepted a bottle of water and took several long drinks. "Hey, Jarvis, what says the internet for soundtrack?"

"The overwhelming opinion is that you should do a fight set to dubstep, sir, specifically the music of an artist named Skrillex." Jarvis replied after a pause.

Steve snickered when Tony just slowly rubbed his eyes. "Right. Well, it's far from my first choice in music but I'll suffer. Jarvis, we're in a pretty tight distance radius so you'll have to call distance to me. Loki, I am going to try my damnedest not to fuck this up this time. Ten meters."

Loki nodded seriously, sitting by the safety glass, then leaned over to Bruce. "What are they talking about?"

"I'll show you." Bruce said, tapping at the laptop then leaning and turning the screen so they could both see it.

"Jarvis, try to keep Loki out of the camera feed." Tony remarked, stepping into the practice space with Steve then leaning back out the still open doorway when he heard Loki laughing.

He'd heard Loki laugh a few times since arriving but this was absolute, gut busting laughter. He'd turned the chair to sit straddling it like he had in the lab, and he was holding onto the back of the chair to steady himself, wiping at tears that were gathering in his eyes.

"Do I want to know?" He asked after a moment.

Bruce grinned at him. "Drunken scrabble video."

"Augh." He returned to the room, putting his visor down. A few months ago all of the Avengers had drank a bit too much alcohol on game night and had decided FUCK poker, and out came the scrabble set, different players switching in as the game went on. And Thor had wiped the floor with ALL OF THEM. And they'd filmed it all and in a moment of drunken revelry put it online. The internet exploded, mostly with glee. Even he had to admit, watching it while sober, that it was more than a bit hilarious because as they progressively got drunker (not an easy feat for a super soldier and an Asgardian!) the vocabulary got more bizarre, obscure science terms and Norse language appearing in kind. "Alright, Jarvis, give us our soundtrack. You ready, Cap?"

The music started thumping in the practice space, and for an answer, Steve started moving and tossed his shield at Tony's face. Tony swore creatively and bent backwards, catching himself on a hand then kicking back up as the fight began.

Sparring for the Avengers had two variations. The first was actual full contact sparring, which was almost more like legit training than anything. The second was a close quarters, no holds barred version of tag. Goal was to be the first to actually get a physical strike on the other, which meant evasion became the name of the game. When Clint and Natasha played this game, it turned into somewhere between gymnastics and free running.

When Steve and Tony played, it was more straightforward, and usually turned it into several short matches. But they were getting better. Tony was best at evading in the air, evading on the ground was something he was learning. And damned if Steve wasn't a good teacher. The distance restriction made it even more difficult, Jarvis continually announcing to Tony that he had to change directions or he'd inadvertently hurt Loki again. He mostly tried to tune the music out because it wasn't his preferred genre, but found shortly that he could work with it.

And the whole time, he was more than aware of Bruce and Loki sitting and watching them. Bruce didn't participate in these games, for obvious reasons, preferring to be the one running the youtube account and keeping score for them on the glass with a whiteboard marker. But, hell, Tony had asked (pleaded, begged, bribed) the other man into staying in the tower for his brain, not his physical prowess. Besides, the Other Guy had the physical prowess.

Eventually they called it, staggering out of the practice space and drinking some Gatorade that Bruce passed them somewhat automatically. "Well, that was fun." Tony said, surveying a thin long dent that Steve's shield had left on one of his hips.

"No kidding." Steve pulled off his helm and put massaged what was going to be a shiner.

"Oh shit, I'm sorry."

"Nah, it'll heal. How about you go gear down so we can eat something?"

"That sounds great to me, I was only hungry what an hour ago? Come on Loki."

"That was… impressive to watch, Stark." Loki sounded thoughtful, walking a few steps behind him. "And actually, very entertaining. Though it is interesting how careful you are not to hurt each other."

"Well, Steve heals fast, it takes me longer though. Besides hurting ourselves isn't the point, you know?" He got on the elevator and held the door for Loki, then hit the appropriate button.

"When we Asgard spar, we tend to nearly break each other. Pain can be a powerful lesson."

"We don't have the benefit of immortality." He rolled a shoulder back and forth, feeling what was going to be soreness later. He was going to have to change his exercise regimen. The suit was only so flexible but he needed to work with it more.

Loki looked at him blankly. "Neither do we."

He blinked, stepping out of the elevator and moving to walk through one of his gear down stations, the armor coming off piece by piece, revealing sweat soaked clothing. "So how long do you live then?"

"Until we die." Loki shrugged.

He made a noise of frustration at that, heading for his apartment, Loki now pacing him. "Okay, seriously, what kind of answer is that?"

"The Asgard live a long time. That said, please remember, I am an entirely different species than my brother."

That made him stop, staring at him then getting back on the elevator. "Good god I knew you were adopted but…"

"Good gods have little to do with this." Loki smiled a touch. "Your voice in the ceiling told you as much. I am Jotunn. Frost giant."

Tony stared at him for a long moment, then got off on his floor, taking off his shirt as he walked. "If I say I don't understand you people, will you get what I mean in this context?"

"Yes." Loki snickered.

"I'm taking a brief shower. Hang tight." And he ducked into his room, kicking the door to behind him.

Loki shrugged, leaning outside the bedroom and reopening his book, humming to himself a bit and grinning when Jarvis picked up on it and brought up the appropriate music, in time with the humming. "Voice in the ceiling, your name is Jarvis, correct?"

"Yes, Mr. Laufeyson." Jarvis replied.

"Would I terribly insult you if I asked what, exactly, are you?" He didn't bother hunting for where the voice was coming from. He'd followed Stark around enough through this building to know the stuffy man's voice could come from everywhere, including Stark's phone if he asked, and apparently his armored suit.

"I am a computer based personality created and maintained by Tony Stark."

"So, you're a… construct. A golem." He smiled a bit to himself. "And they say humans do not have magic."

"Hardly magic, Mr. Laufeyson, simply very good technology. But they do say that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

"And you help Stark?"

"I do assist Mr. Stark in various ways. I also interact with others in the company, as necessary."

"Hmm." So that was probably one of the secret's to Stark's success as a relatively normal human trying to run with people who were, by nature, stronger than he was. Interesting. He smiled a bit again and returned to his book.

A few minutes later, Tony came back out, hair still damp and wearing drawstring pants and a tank top. "Okay, come on, I'm hungry."

"So am I." He closed the book again and followed, still smiling.

"Jarvis, where did the food end up?"

"Bruce took it up to the penthouse sir."

"Alright, back upstairs we go then." He walked barefoot back to the elevator, then looked at Loki, lifting an eyebrow when he saw the smile. "Well you're in a good mood."

As a response, Loki reached over and ruffled a hand through Stark's wet hair, then knitted his hand into it and pulled, slow, watching a switch flip in the other man and make him slowly go boneless. "You need to dry yourself better, Stark." That said, he let go.

Tony stagger stepped and leaned against the elevator wall, staring up at him. "Uhh…."

Loki snickered and got off the elevator, leaving Tony to catch up.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Tony walked through the living room and leaned on the back of the sofa, pondering Loki, who was sitting barefoot on the carpet in front of the turned on fireplace. He was sitting cross legged, slouched slightly to one side, his book open in his lap. "I need to try to get some sleep. You okay for now?"

"I'm fine." Loki replied, turning a page. "Thank you for the books."

Tony blinked several times at his back, and tried to remember if the other man had said those words at any other time in this visit. He honestly didn't think so. "Well, you're welcome. I hope you're enjoying them."

"I hope they let me take them with me." Loki's voice gained a sad note.

He pushed back to a standing position, heading to his bed, rubbing his eyes.

Maybe it was because of what he was, but Loki was managing to fit in rather well. He actually carried on some fairly dynamic conversations with Bruce and Steve while they ate upstairs, working his way through a single brandy. He was smiling a lot, Tony thought, and he'd come to like how Loki smiled. Yeah, part of him still twitched a little, but beyond an unstoppable smart mouth, Loki just didn't seem inclined to cause a lot of trouble. He'd certainly had plenty of opportunities to do so, today, and he'd shrugged it off and adapted and seemed to have a good time with it.

For Steve and Bruce's part, they seemed to be handling it pretty well. Tony was sure he'd get an earful later but for now he was just glad Clint and Natasha weren't around. He huffed and flopped onto his bed, grabbing the blanket and pulling it around himself so he was wrapped in the comforter, just setting his head on the bed and staring off.

He was alarmingly comfortable with this, he realized. Loki, and an army attached to him, had blown the shit out of a section of New York, and Loki himself had had fantasies of ruling the world. Where was that fiery, angry, bitter man now? It didn't seem like the same person that was sitting in front of his fireplace, reading through the Hobbit near obsessively. Or was he just too easy to trust and forgive, given what he'd come back from, the arms dealer turned philanthropist?

He rolled over and buried himself in the blanket, half wishing Pepper was there as always and half glad she wasn't, because he was sure she'd be giving him an earful as well.

Loki watched Stark walk away to his bed, then looked back at the book, fingers slowly fondling the edge of one page. So much had happened in one day, but this made everything else pale. When had he last gotten such a thoughtful gift? When had someone last brought him books? And Stark had acted like it was nothing, piling his arms with apparently well-known fiction literature of Midgard.

This book, the Hobbit, was somewhat straightforward. He wondered if perhaps it had been written for a young audience, initially, but he could understand why it'd become known. It had charm. Much like his off kilter, arrogant, narcissistic host. A host that could not keep his eyes of him, any time he thought Loki wasn't looking and even if he was.

The thing was, watching Tony with his friends, he saw the same kind of gaze, but changed. With Bruce, Tony was warm but careful. With Steve, he played more rough, but it was that same kind of caring. These people meant a lot to Tony…

… When had he become Tony?

He stared into the fire, fingers still fondling the pages, fingernail gently dragging to ruffle over the edges. Tony Stark, a man in a suit of living armor, with a power generator in his chest and a devil-may-care smile. Apparently endlessly famous to the point people just recognized him on the streets, and he enjoyed the attention, but when Steve or Bruce said something, Tony lit up like a beacon.

And he'd thrown the man out a window, nearly to his death. Not moments after Tony had offered him a drink, obviously a stalling tactic or not.

The silence in the room was getting to him.

"Jarvis? Can you put on music, quietly?" He said, keeping his voice low.

"What would you like to listen to, Mr. Laufeyson?" The voice replied, soft, like it was next to him.

He blew out a sigh. "What would Tony listen to?"

Obligingly some of that harsh, angry music kicked up, but on low volume, and he tilted his head when the lyrics started, listening then freezing.

_Hey kid, do I have your attention? I know the way you've been living. Life so wreckless, tragedy endless, welcome to the family._

He rubbed his palms into his eyes then pressed his palms together, trying to reach that quiet meditative place and jolted back to reality by the collar. His reach to other places and worlds was cut off for now. Fine, he sulked, looking back toward Tony's door. But the song was not helping his frame of mind.

_I see you're a king who's been dethroned, cast out, in a world you've never known. _

This has to be on purpose, he thought. "Jarvis? Who is this musician?"

"Avenged Sevenfold, Mr. Laufeyson. It was the next song on Mr. Stark's playlist."

_Place your weapons by your side, it's our war, in the end we'll surely lose, but that's alright._

_So have you figured it out, now? So have you figured it out?_

He gently closed the book and set it aside and got to his feet, stretching out to delay then padding across the carpet to Tony's door, pushing it open and leaning a shoulder there. The light coming in from the main room was more than enough for him to see by, the bedroom was clean and rather neglected. He wondered how often Tony actually slept there, and burst into laughter when the pile of blanket stirred and the Midgardian sat up a bit, pushing up on one arm. "Do you always sleep like that, Tony?"

Tony squinted at him, then laughed. "Holy shit you used my name. Need something?"

"Actually, yes."

_We all have emptiness inside, we all have answers to find, but you can't win this fight_

Tony jumped out of his skin at the speed at which Loki crossed the room, suddenly on the bed and knocking him back, straddling over his waist and looking down at him. "Okay uh what the fuck brought this on?" He wanted to know, sprawling on his back and making himself not freak out. Okay, yes. Loki was sitting on him. Loki. Still in the skin tight shirt. Shit shit SHIT.

Loki looked down at him, head tilted, and smiled at the jumble of reactions he got. A bit of fear, at first, then that was gone, lust creeping back in. "I do need something from you." He planted his hands on either side of Tony's head and leaned down to speak in his ear, smiling when the shorter man twitched. "I need you to touch me."

"Uh, Loki? I'm not so sure that's…" Tony grated out, fingers curling into the comforter because something in Loki's voice shot all the way down his spine. Like a friendly, predatory growl.

"Touch me. You said yourself, when have you ever done something because it's a good idea?" And Loki bit his ear.

And Tony's resistance snapped. Not like he had a lot, hands flying up to Loki's hips and stroking up his sides, still on the shirt but damn, that was a preview. Muscle tensed and twitched under his hands, a tremble crossing over them when he followed Loki's ribcage around and trailed down his abs. Fucking gorgeous, he thought to himself, turning his head and burying his face into Loki's neck, nuzzling there as he brought his hands back up, feeling another restrained tremble go through Loki's muscles. Fuck but Loki smelled good, fresh clean snow and wintergreen, and he'd never seen Loki bother with the shower. Dirt just didn't seem to stick to him, he'd just shake out and be perfect again. Unreal.

Loki smiled when his neck got nuzzled, eyes closing partway, and tried to remember the last time he'd bedded anyone. And when would he find a more accommodating host, really? He paused, automatically going through the mental couplet to get rid of his clothes, and… nothing happened. Right. Midgardian clothes. He laughed and pushed back to a kneeling position, grinning when Tony pushed up to prop himself on his hands, staring up at him and swallowing hard. "These clothes of yours are terribly inconvenient." He chided, taking off the shirt the hard way and discarding it.

"Well, we don't have your party trick." Tony replied, neatly covering up his reaction to Loki shirtless. Nope, not flawless. Lots of scars, actually, faded crisscrossing lines across Loki's torso, but just gorgeous icy pale skin. Okay, so Thor is blonde, tanned, and bulky, and Loki is pale, gothic, and gymnast muscle. He knew which he preferred, stoking his fingers along the line between Loki's pecs. "So, really, what brought this on?"

"Does your mouth ever stop moving?" Loki wanted to know, yanking the tanktop up and over Tony's head and off in such a way that he had no choice but to move his arms and let it happen, leaving them both shirtless, stroking his fingers on either side of the arc reactor, tracing over the scars there. Some were older than others, he noted.

"No." He shifted so he could sit without propping himself up, getting his hands back onto Loki, pressing his palms in and following bone lines around his body, sliding his hands down Loki's defined back and feeling what felt a lot like a wince. So he drug his hands back up and dug in there, pressing his palms and fingers in, kneading the flesh without really thinking about it.

"Stark…" Loki twitched, holding back a hiss of pain then eyes widening when the impromptu massage started working. The knots in his muscles, always there from his body fighting to recover damage that simply wasn't entirely healing, started to release, and he groaned, relaxing into Tony's arms. "Do not stop that under any circumstance."

"Any?" Tony replied innocently, leaning his forehead against Loki's collarbone to hide the grin, more than enjoying how plastic the demigod had gone in his arms. It was that simple? Give the great villain a backrub and he turned into a kitten? Loki only growled at his comment, face tucked into Tony's hair, so he continued for a few moments. "If you lay on your stomach I can do this easier."

Instead, one of Loki's hands grabbed into the hair on the back of his head and tugged a bit, leaning back at the same time and claiming Tony's mouth. Tony pushed into the kiss, one hand sliding up to the back of Loki's neck and fisting into the longer hair that cascaded there, eyes closing. Loki tasted like the brandy he'd been drinking earlier, expensive and classy, and he let his mouth open, a little noise escaping him when Loki's tongue found his first. Oh wow I am so doomed, he thought to himself, other hand still massaging little circles on Loki's back to a purr of satisfaction.

Loki eased the kiss out and pulled back a bit to stare at Tony, who stared back with barely open eyes, breathing shot to hell and pupils blown out. "Lay on my stomach, hmm?"

"Yeah, I uh I give Pepper back rubs all the time. Bruce sometimes too."

Loki managed not to roll his eyes, shoving the blanket out of the way and flopping down diagonally across the bed, feeling himself sink in and get cradled by an obviously expensive material. "What IS your relationship with Banner?"

Tony bit back a hiss of disappoint when Loki moved, then sat and stared at Loki for several long moments before scrambling to his hands and knees and moving to straddle over the small of Loki's back, leaning and carefully digging his palms into the back of Loki's neck, fingers brushing the hair out of the way. "He's one of my best friends, I love him, he has a standing invitation to my bed. He's politely declined, he doesn't trust himself." He shrugged to himself. "But he doesn't mind it when I touch sometimes. It's good for him to have human contact." He worked his hands out slightly, working the muscles on the top of Loki's shoulders, unable to stop smiling.

"You're just all hands." Loki mumbled, feeling tense knots of muscle unwinding. Yes, this was a particularly vulnerable position to be in but he didn't even care anymore. "And particularly talented hands they are."

"Flatterer." He kneaded over Loki's shoulder blades. Loki asked him a few other questions as he worked his way down to the demigod's beltline, and he answered them, amused as hell. Apparently Loki had saved up some questions over time and felt now as a good time to leverage him for information, no matter how seemingly inane. Not that he minded, closing his eyes partly as he worked, feeling muscle and bone shift under his hands and putting together a model in his head. He could actually feel injuries here and there, not a wounded spine thank god, but more the remains of battered bone and torn muscle from where the Hulk had banged him around like a ragdoll. Not that he could feel sorry about that, they'd all done what was necessary. Eventually he rubbed his hands over Loki's back lightly then crossed his arms, proudly regarding the molten pool of demigod sprawled on his bed.

"Of course you realize I could say this is all I wanted and wander off." Loki finally said, not moving from where he was.

"You could. I wouldn't believe you." He shifted and sprawled out next to Loki, letting himself sink into the memory foam mattress.

Loki turned his head to look at him, lifting an eyebrow. "You're becoming far too perceptive about me."

"Well you're not real good at hiding things when it matters." He reached out and brushed Loki's hair out of his eyes, grinning when Loki rolled back on top of him and more than happy to show him that Midgardian pants were not, in fact, that hard to get out of.

Loki blinked awake and growled at the sunlight coming through the mirrored glass, draping his lower arm over his eyes and bringing his other hand up to ruffle through Tony's hair without looking. He was sprawled on his back, and Tony was mostly on top of him at an angle, face buried in his neck and reactor digging into his chest just a bit. He could feel it humming, something he'd just had to get used to. As well as the light that just couldn't be turned off. But small annoyances, really, very small.

He'd learned a lot about Tony Stark last night, probably more than the other man knew. Not that it would be particularly useful in future fights if that occurred. An idea that made him vaguely uncomfortable now, and he couldn't even be mad at himself for it. No, he wasn't going soft, but he had no safe places to go, no one on his side, and with the Asgard imprisoning him, which was oddly protecting him from his former employers/coworkers the Chitauri who he was sure wanted him tortured and dead at all costs, and with the Midgardians, who considered him a war criminal, having someone he could at least count on to talk to him would be a powerful benefit.

So, here was Tony Stark, wealthy beyond calculation, his influence seeming to know no bounds. In spite of the conflict that had happened, Tony had taken Loki into his house and into his arms. Was there trust here? Loki wasn't certain, but they could have killed each other several dozen times over now. And instead, here they were. He doubted that Stark would walk away from the friends he loved so dearly, and he didn't really want him to. He'd found him liking Tony just as he was, that is to say, strong enough to push back against him.

Tony shuddered and suddenly twitched awake, tensing then slowly relaxing out. Loki kept messing with his hair, waiting for him to say something, smiling a bit when he felt Tony's goatee scrape against his shoulder.

"Morning?" Tony finally hazarded, rolling away and sitting up, rubbing his eyes then propping his arms on his knees, looking at Loki, who stayed sprawled out, partly covered in a sheet and totally unashamed. So, last night had really happened. Just crown him king of poorly thought out decisions, he thought to himself, especially as his body started checking in and he realized just how sore he was. Loki fucked like he fought, and it oddly was not a bad thing. "Time, Jarvis?"

"Eight sixteen in the morning sir. Miss Potts asked me to tell you when you woke up that she expects to be in the tower at ten this morning."

He blinked slowly. "Wow. That's… several days early."

"She said that you'd say that, and she said to tell you that the deal closed much earlier than expected."

He snickered in spite of himself, shaking his head wearily. "Right. Time to get up, Loki. Let's make ourselves presentable for the lady."

"I am always presentable." Loki sat up and flipped his hair back, where it detangled itself and fell perfectly.

"… True story." He agreed begrudgingly, rolling off the bed and heading for the bathroom. "You're welcome to shower with me anyway."

And suddenly Loki was nearly on top of him, grabbing him from behind and biting the back of his neck. "And you say that like you have a chance of keeping me out." Loki snickered.

Tony stumbled but laughed, leaning on the door to the shower. "Are you always this much of a horndog?"

"You Midgardians. I barely get warmed up last night and you pass out. Tch."

"Oh, boy. " He grinned, turning on the shower. "Promises, promises."

In spite of Loki trying to run interference the entire time, Tony managed to make sure they were clean, dry, and mostly dressed by the time Pepper Potts returned to Stark Tower. Loki was shirtless on the balcony in one of his chairs, reading and drinking all his goddamn orange juice if he was any judge. But Tony only smiled and shook his head, he was standing just inside the balcony doors doing math on the door in a dry erase marker because something had settled in his head, and he needed some room to write it out and check to see how accurate it was.

Not that he cared about the math anymore when Pepper walked in and set her messenger bag aside, breaking into a wide grin. "You're back early."

"Deal closed much earlier than expected." She met him halfway and laughed when he picked her up happily. "Well you're in a good mood."

"Aren't I always when you come back?"

"No, I know you. You were in one anyway." She pecked his lips softly, then turned her head when she saw movement on the balcony, not surprised when Tony used that opening to nuzzle behind her ear. "You have company."

"Indeed he does." Loki agreed, standing and leaning in the open balcony door, still shirtless and holding his book, lifting an eyebrow at her. In fact, he wasn't wearing anything but his collar and the pants Tony had bought for him the day prior, barefoot and pale as a ghost in the morning sun and still stunningly regal in bearing. His hair wasn't perfect anymore though, it had finished drying in the sun and wind, bits of it falling over his forehead and around his face.

She stepped back from Tony and folded her arms, eyeing Loki slowly than looking at Tony. "Well?"

"Thor wanted to spend the weekend with his girl so I agreed to watch him." Tony shrugged and shoved his hands in his back pockets, not entirely worried because Pepper was cautious, not mad. Yet. "He got here Thursday and gets picked up Monday. Introduce yourself, you rude-ass bastard."

"Stark, I never." He stepped over the threshold and his clothing changed, snapping neatly to the royal outfit he was so fond of, striding over and taking a sweeping bow before standing up fully. "Loki Laufeyson, Thor's brother."

"Adopted, if I recall." She quirked an eyebrow. Loki quirked one back. Tony looked between them.

"That is true, yes." Loki conceded. "No grand plots this trip, I'm afraid."

"Uh huh." She tapped a finger on one of her upper arms, then looked at Tony. Loki took the pause to dismiss the Asgard outfit and fetch a shirt from the bag left on the coffee table, eventually finding one of his and shrugging into it. "So, how's he been behaving?"

"No issues at all, going to take him with me to the show tonight actually. And we're supposed to go blow up something tomorrow."

"Uh huh. And how was he?"

Tony grinned. "Excellent."

Loki managed to trip over his own feet, damn near hitting the ground before catching himself somehow, straightening the shirt (Master of Puppets) as he stepped back over. "Excuse me?"

"He actually wore me out." He continued, ignoring Loki because he wasn't part of the conversation at the moment.

"Really? Mildly impressive." Pepper turned her gaze back on Loki, considering, but still talking to Tony. "You realize it's on you if this goes wrong."

"Oh, trust me I know." He shifted, watching her eyeball Loki.

"Have you explained the rules?"

"Rules?" Loki wanted to know, slowly lifting an eyebrow again and looking very, very intrigued.

"Not yet. I haven't had the chance." Tony scratched the back of his head, mustering a smile. "Shame on me, I know."

"You're terrible." She patted one of his cheeks, smiling. "You boys ate yet today?"

"Not yet."

"Well, if you can hold off a while how about we get sushi for lunch?"

He grinned and pulled her in, wrapping his arms around her waist. "Sounds great to me, but what are we doing until then?"

"Down, boy." She pecked him again, then slipped out of his arms and walked toward the bedroom, stopping in front of Loki and setting a finger on his chest to get his attention. "If you hurt him, I will destroy you." Then Pepper smiled, easy, beautiful, and walked off toward the bedroom, taking off her heels as she went.

And Loki stared after her, gaping. "That was… one of the most arousing things…"

"Great, isn't she?" Tony was grinning.

"How on Midgard did you land her?"

He made a face and shoved Loki. "We may as well sit, she'll probably want to run down our few guidelines herself."

Loki sat on the floor, cross legged and a bit slouched to one side, eyes closed as Pepper Potts ran a brush through his hair. He'd tried telling her he could just shake out any tangles and yet, somehow he still had ended up here. "So…"

"So?" She gathered his hair behind his shoulders, running her fingers through it then picking three small strands of hair on the crown of his head, starting the braid and picking up more hair as she went. Tony leaned and watched her hands move, fascinated.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm French braiding your hair. Going to leave a few bits loose though, you need them framing your face." Her fingers kept moving, occasionally pinning the three gradually growing strands with one hand and using the brush to neaten up her work. "So, I'm sure you're wondering what exactly you've gotten yourself into. Tony and I are in a committed relationship, however, after talking a lot we came to a few realizations. One being that we both like having more than two people in a bed."

"I was under the impression Midgardians moved two by two." Loki said, lifting an eyebrow.

"A lot of us do. Not all of us." Tony replied. "I try to be a good boyfriend, but by nature I struggle with monogamy."

"He tried though. Hell he made me bring it up." She snickered, fingers still moving neatly along the braid, gradually pulling nearly all of Loki's hair into it. "So we talked about it, and established a few rules. The main one being safety."

"I've already done enough stupid shit in my lifetime. I'm lucky that I'm as healthy as I am." Tony said, watching Loki's expression.

"Hmm. And the others?"

"We hide nothing. That's why he wasn't concerned about me finding out about you. Oh, and anyone we bring into this…" She used her grip on Loki's hair to tip his head back and look into his eyes. "Has to be willing to take us both on."

He stared back, mouth curling into that dangerous clever smile. "Is that a challenge, my dear?"

She grinned and tilted his head back to where she needed it, fingers working along to finish the braid. "You sure picked a charmer this time, Tony."

"You have no idea." He leaned in and pecked her cheek, watching her tie the braid off. Loki lifted both hands, running them over the new hairstyle curiously. "Sorry about the show tonight, by the way."

"You called these guys and asked if they could put on a show in New York, you're going." She replied in a no nonsense voice.

Loki got to his feet and found one of the decorative mirrors in the room, looking at what she'd done. He'd always worn his hair down, but this a change he could work with. He was turning back and saw Pepper looking at him with narrowed eyes. "What?"

She looked at Tony instead. "Though for the record, I still miss Phil."

He rubbed his eyes." I know."

"…who?" Loki blinked.

"You ran him through with your staff then he shot you, if I got my order of events right." Tony replied.

He blinked again, then sighed and put his hands up helplessly. "I hardly think I can apologize for being in the heat of battle. I killed a lot of people or caused them to die through my actions. I can't say I knew any of their names. We all did what we thought was necessary at the time."

"What you thought was necessary." Pepper repeated.

"The Chitauri told me if I didn't carry out my end of the bargain they'd hunt me down and murder me." He repeated the helpless gesture.

"Wow, did you make deals with the wrong people." Tony said. "That doesn't clear you, you know."

"It's something I shall have to live with." He hesitated. "So, I imagine the earlier implied bed invitation is not to be had now?"

"Oh, no, that just means we have some anger to work out."

Loki grinned. "I can work with that."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

They ate at the counter in the crowded sushi bar, Loki sitting between Tony and Pepper, entirely ignored by the public that came and went, business people picking up bento boxes and people jockeying for tables. And hell, they'd arrived for an early lunch.

"No, like this, Tony goes about it ass backwards." Pepper was saying, showing Loki how to hold chopsticks. "I've been trying to correct him for years and he still does it wrong."

"It works fine, what's the problem?" Tony replied, idly flipping one of the chopsticks through his fingers.

"The fact that you know how to do it right and that you purposefully do it wrong to annoy me?" She leaned forward to look at him around Loki and stuck her tongue out at him. He just grinned.

"I'm allowed to find this all very peculiar right?" Loki finally said, settling the sticks in his hand, opening and closing them a few times.

"Of course." Pepper replied.

"No I mean, all of this." He gestured with the sticks, tapping the ends together. "This is quite a lot of ceremony to stand on for fish and rice."

"Perhaps but it's delicious." Tony said, grinning when their orders started arriving. Because he was hungry and because Pepper had wanted to let Loki try a variety, they'd practically ordered half the menu. The sushi bar had long since gotten used to their patronage, though, and hadn't even blinked. Bruce liked sushi. Bruce ate everything, though.

Loki stared at the rainbow of expertly made sushi, still tapping the chopsticks together slowly. Tony poured him a cup of Japanese green tea. "So…"

"Dig in. If you like it we'll try to figure out what it is."

He looked back and forth between Pepper and Tony, who were already reaching for rolls and pouring appropriate sauces into dishes. After a few moments he shrugged and tried his hand at picking up one of the rolls, dropping it the first time then getting it on the second try. Hungry and not caring entirely about manners he ate the whole roll and chewed, blinking and lifting an eyebrow.

"Let me guess. Bizarre. But you're okay with that." Tony said, watching this and watching Loki switch lifted eyebrows a few times as he considered.

He swallowed slowly. "That's accurate."

Pepper giggled, the noise turning into a full-fledged laugh, grabbing a nearby laminated sheet that explained all the rolls and running through them a bit, explaining that sushi as a name really applied to the rice and how it was prepared, and going through some other terminology. Tony contented himself with watching this while he ate, Pepper pinching his hand a few times with her sticks to prevent him from eating all of some variety before Loki could grab one. He didn't mind, though.

Loki proved himself quick on the uptake though, quickly mastering the chopsticks and proving it by eating a bowl of rice as well without a problem. He didn't say much throughout the meal, mostly listening and watching the chefs and the rest of the restaurant, seeming thoughtful about it all while eating his fair share of the sushi, leaning toward the rolls with larger pieces of fish. When he did start talking, it was about something else entirely.

"Those phones, like you gave my brother. They're everywhere." He observed, pointing his sticks at someone else eating at the counter a few seats down. Said person had ear buds in and was fiddling with an iPhone.

Tony swallowed some tea, considering his reply, but Pepper spoke first. "Apple iPhones. Stark as a company has been fighting with Apple for market share since we started making a phone. It's not easy to get sales away from Apple."

Loki hmmed to himself, and Tony looked at him, lifting an eyebrow. "You know if you wanted to rule the world you should have made yourself the new leader of Apple and put out an iPhone 5 in short order. You'd have endless hipsters bowing to you at least."

The other man blinked a few times, then started laughing, rubbing his face with a free hand. "Would it have really been that easy?"

"All depends how you define ruler, really." Tony said after a moment. "But once you have enough market share and money, you can get away with damn near anything."

"Live boy or dead girl?" Pepper lifted an eyebrow.

"Right, right." He saw Loki's stare. "There's an old political maxim. 'Don't get caught with a live boy, or dead girl.' That's probably going to phase out a bit now that same sex relationships are getting a bit more acceptable, but point is, don't step on the moral toes of most of your customers and you can get away with a lot. Hell, crown yourself king of hipsters and demand to be called Lord. Worked for Richard Garriott."

"Geeky." She smiled a bit though.

Loki just slowly shook his head, setting his chopsticks down on the counter and looking back and forth between them. "Well, in the event I get another chance at ruling this world, I shall keep that in mind."

"Smartass."

"He is changing clothes, yet what I am wearing is fine." Loki remarked without looking up from his book, sitting on Tony's couch reading and waiting for Tony to get ready for the show.

"You'll blend in fine." Pepper walked over and sat on the other side of the couch, legs drawn up and considering him seriously. "Lord of the Rings?"

"I finished The Hobbit this morning." He turned a page, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. "I must admit, you've been a surprise."

"Really." She quirked an eyebrow, leaning back against the arm of the couch. "Why?"

"Tall, smart, quite lovely really, and totally not concerned that your beau was in bed with another man." He put his eyes back on the book. "Your… arrangement… with Stark is an interesting one."

"Why would I be concerned? We'd talked about it, he was immediately honest." She shrugged. "It's a bit of a relief, really."

"Hm." He closed the book , holding it shut between his hands in midair and looking at her fully. "Wouldn't you rather have a man fighting just for you?"

"You kill one of my friends and you think you can provide me with advice?" She quirked an eyebrow again.

He shrugged, setting the book on the coffee table. "It is not as if I had a personal vendetta against the man. It was a battlefield and he was a threat." When she just stared at him, eyes narrowed, he huffed and stood. "What would you have me say? An insincere apology? At least I am being honest, I think."

"You aren't sorry."

He threw out his arms. "Sorry? How much can one man be sorry for! That I am not my father's, that I can't prove myself to him and when I tried I was cast aside, something my own brother had a hand in? That I made a play for your planet, and now it's being rubbed in my face that there is no way I could have ever had a chance? That I will spend the rest of my many long years imprisoned or on a leash like an animal? Justice, I'm sure you think, but your lives are a blink to ours! How many years for failed attempts, Pepper Potts? Oh, not even one of yours, so far, but this will go on far after you're a memory." His clothes flickered and snapped back to the green and black outfit, pacing but still staring at her. "And to know that even if I did have a chance of escaping, I'm better off ending my own existence because it would be cleaner and quicker than those that would find me?" When she just kept staring at him, he snarled in frustration and tried to stomp away to the windows, cut off short at Jarvis warning him about distance and burying his face in his hands instead. "There is no future for me. Just waiting. And knowing that this little, this little vacation arranged by my dim brother is the closest I will ever know to freedom, and knowing that my sentence was his idea of mercy."

There was a long, long silence, broken only by Loki's shaky breathing.

"…Whoa." Tony said, leaning in his doorway, in tailored black jeans and one of his new shirts, his arms folded.

Loki hissed, looking over his shoulder. "I do not want your pity, Stark."

"Oh. Yay. Back to that again." He replied, not moving, looking at Pepper, who sat silently, eyes wide. "Jarvis, how long until we have to leave?"

"Accommodating for traffic, I would suggest you depart within the next twenty five minutes."

"Good, we have a little time then." He shook his head and walked over to Loki, not surprised when the taller man recoiled away from him. "Fine, you don't want my pity. I'm not offering any. How about you come sit your ass down and talk to us instead."

"What good could that possibly do?" Loki wanted to know, voice coming out much calmer.

"What harm could it possibly do?" Tony replied. "You slept in my bed last night, you want to make an attempt at returning that trust?"

Loki blinked a few times, arms falling limply to his sides, then allowed himself to be drug back to the sofa, sitting heavily and leaning his head on his hands, eyes closed.

"Okay, you know what? I don't think I want to know details about what happened before Thor got here. Frankly from what little I've seen you guys redefine fucked up so I really don't want to know." Tony stayed standing, smiling when Loki just snickered in reply to this. "I'd just like to know, why this planet?"

"Why not this planet?" He snickered again when Pepper kicked him across the sofa. "I was a prince without a kingdom, with no desire to return to the one I was removed from. And this planet seemed like an easy take, plus a good way to strike back at my brother. But, as we all know it didn't work out that way, now did it?" He opened his eyes, lifted his head and smiled in a nasty way. "I would think that would be obvious enough."

"Downward spiral." Pepper finally said. "So why did you even start this?"

"Your people say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I had a good intention, and now I'm in hell. And I don't want to talk about this anymore. I want to try, for the next few precious hours, days, try to forget what awaits me. Are we going to that show or not, Tony?"

"Well… yeah. I'm ready if you are."

Loki stood, Asgardian clothes fading back out. "I was waiting on you. What, needed more time to get pretty?"

"I'm always pretty. Jackass. Come on. Pepper, we'll be back in a few hours." He leaned down and kissed her, holding her close for a precious moment.

"Don't cause trouble."

"Yeah, us not causing trouble. We'll try."

Pepper watched Tony and Loki go, tapping her fingers together and thinking. She wasn't particularly worried about Tony, no, he'd shown her how the bracelet had worked while Loki had used the bathroom and Jarvis had been nice enough to put the video of Loki accidently going outside the distance range on Tony's phone. The few seconds of footage was enough to prove the concept. It'd actually been kind of horrifying and she'd been glad when Steve had ended the episode.

That said, Loki was clearly not right.

"Jarvis." She said, still staring off.

"Yes, Miss Potts?"

"You have Thor's phone number right?" She tapped her fingers together again.

"Of course."

"Did you record what just happened? What Loki said?"

"Would you like video, or just audio?"

She smiled a bit. "You know what? Make it video. Send it to Thor's phone. Note it that I'm sending it, he needs to see it, but that he probably won't be happy about the content."

"You realize I have no idea what to expect."

Tony shrugged and beeped his car locked. Their VIP lanyards already hung around their necks, and because the particular venue was so nice about it all he'd commanded a close parking spot. Others were not so lucky, and the doors were open, the line already stretching. "Okay. It'll be noisy, the lighting will be questionable and the booze more so. Outside of that, just stick close and try to enjoy yourself, and remember no one here is a threat."

They walked past the line, and Loki found himself staring at men and women dressed in mostly black, strange jewelry and stranger hair styles, bizarre piercings and things he just wasn't sure he recognized. He did fit in with the crowd well though, even the collar fit perfectly because he was far from the only person who had one. Probably his was the fanciest, though. "I'll try to keep that in mind."

"Right." Tony stepped to the front of the line. The guy waiting there started to say something and Tony only smiled and jerked his chin down. The guy followed the gesture and stepped back slightly at the still visible gleam of the arc reactor. "Just two seconds, sorry." That said, he turned and held the VIP pass up to the ticket takers. "Stark plus one."

"Right." The two ticket takers stared at him for a second, then one dug out a list. "You're good, go on in."

"Thank you very much." And he grabbed Loki's arm and drug him through the doors, grinning the whole way.

"That seemed rude, passing all those people." Loki said thoughtfully once they were inside, looking around. He could see what might have been a bar, and could hear distant noise through doors, the shifting din of a growing crowd.

"And that's the magic of the VIP pass." He shrugged, cutting around everyone, leaving Loki to rush to catch up. "I missed these guys when they were on tour so I called them up and asked if they were willing to do an encore show if I paid their airfare. And gas bill. And whatever else. Basically I said "have some money now come do a show for Ironman" and it worked."

"That also seems rude." Though Loki honestly wasn't sure why.

"They got over it. They're here aren't they? VIP passes work for backstage, some good seating and a lounge, we'll see what of it we actually want to use." He cut through some doors to the main floor of the concert hall, grinning at the waiting stage and the milling crowd of people.

"These people are different."

"Like, don't like? Which?" Tony wanted to know, heading for the bar at the back of the main floor. "Actually, you know what? Wait for the bands to take stage. You might change your opinion of these people then."

"There are times when I honestly only understand about half what you're… saying…" And he took the cup from Tony, who had somehow already managed to procure two drinks from the bartender.

"Jagerbomb." And Tony downed his and put the glass back on the bar.

Loki stared at him, then shook his head and followed suit, swallowing hard then hacking once. "That tasted like a healer's medicine. I think I shall stay with brandy."

"You say that now."

He was honestly a little worried by Tony's expression.

The crowd filled in and the concert hall became crowded and hot, the noise ramping up. Tony made sure to keep track of him in the crowd, which let Loki take it in without constantly looking for the other man. To his surprise, no one seemed to notice who Tony was, that was until the lights dropped for the bands to come on and the near obnoxious glow of the arc reactor became a beacon. Then people noticed but mostly they exchanged greetings and hand gestures with Tony. And took pictures.

"I haven't gotten to do this in a long time." Tony remarked to him over the noise. The first band was on the stage, Tony had already explained the concept of opening bands.

"Why do I think that's for the best…" Loki murmured, the assertion lost in the noise, stretching to peer over the crowd, and raised his voice. "There's a fight, over there. More like a brawl, actually."

And to Loki's total shock, Tony grabbed his wrist and started dragging him toward it. "Circle pit!"

"Stop!" Loki barked, and Tony did, looking back at him. "Explain this to me."

"It's not a fight. It's more like a pushing contest. No one's really trying to hurt each other, not bad at least, and if you fall someone is going to pick you up, it's a rule." He saw Loki's expression, and stepped in closer. "Would you rather not?"

"I am Asgardian, Stark, we fight as much as we breathe, I just don't understand the reason."

"Do we need a reason? Can you keep from maiming people?" Tony lifted an eyebrow.

"I can try."

"Good enough. Come on."

Tony grabbed his wrist but the grip slid down to his hand as they moved, working their way through the crowd which got denser as they moved, eventually standing at the edge of a mostly empty circle where maybe a smaller group of people, mostly shirtless guys but some girls too, were having one of the strangest fights Loki had personally seen. It was more like a body checking contest, everyone fighting for ground and the people at the edge shoving them back in.

"You sure you want to get into this, Stark? You might bust that pretty face of yours." Loki leaned to be heard, quirking an eyebrow.

"Yeah, you have room to talk." And Tony stepped into the pit, dragging Loki with him and cheerfully entering the fray.

Loki put a hand to his face and shook his head slowly, then one of the other patrons of the pit shoulder checked into him only to mostly bounce away as Loki rocked back a bit, turning to face who did it and lifting his eyebrows. The other man, more a kid he thought, gaped up at him in confusion, so he grinned and returned the favor, sending the kid staggering back several feet.

And the pit took notice of that, so he moved and cheerfully put himself back to back with Tony, lifting his hands in a beckon as Tony did, laughing. "Tony, what have you gotten me into?" He wanted to know over his shoulder.

"Shut up and have fun, dumbass!" Tony replied, laughing as the pit closed around them, the circle pit picking back up again and yanking them along in the current.

Pepper was sitting at her computer, drinking tea and trying to wrap things up, when Jarvis put a preprogrammed alert. So she clicked over to a social networking aggregator Jarvis had put together for her to help her keep track of the internet's reaction to Stark Industries and the Avengers, and kicked back and watched messages and photos pop up and spread across the internet.

Ironman in the circle pit! #Ironman #METAL #WTF

And all she could do for the moment was laugh and watch, at first at least, then paused, looking at the pictures. Yeah, crappy phone pictures but Loki was getting caught on film, at Tony's side, looking confused and pleased and a little bit evil from a shot in the circle pit.

Fury was not going to be happy about this.

But he was rarely happy about anything Tony was involved in.

The concert passed in a blur for Loki. The crash and shove of the circle pit and that odd feeling when he was sent staggering, nearly falling then caught by another Midgardian, pulled back to his feet with a sure grip. The angry tumble of the music, somehow completely agreeable to him. Tony eventually pulling them out of the pit and flashing the badges at a door and then talking to some people backstage, excited chattering, apparently this was in fact Avenged Sevenfold and he was so glad they were willing to do this for him and seriously guys, do you want an all-expenses paid vacation in Cancun or something in return because that can be arranged.

And he caught that this was less than normal, but that Tony had somehow gotten away with it and the band was laughing it off even though they'd been requested for a special performance. And he was introduced as a friend of Tony and was forced to adapt and talk to the band as well.

And watching the band perform from a section of balcony seating with other peoples with the badges they had, many of them were people Tony knew but not all. And he was happy to sit and prop his arms on the balcony railing and listen to this band he'd somehow gotten fond of, smiling when that one song came on in spite of himself.

Then they were staggering back through Stark Tower, leaning on each other's shoulders and laughing and maybe a bit drunk as they headed for the elevator. It was Loki that noticed the subtle change in air pressure, feeling the menace from afar.

"We're being watched."

"Oh. Wait." Tony blinked. "Jarvis, headcount."

"Pepper Potts and Bruce Banner remain present, Clint Barton and Natasha Romanov have returned."

"Well, we're both dead. Nice knowing you." Tony shook his head, then yelled in the empty lobby of the building. "Clint! I'll see you upstairs. Penthouse." Then he got on the elevator with Loki and pushed the button for the top floor, shaking his head still.

"I was under the impression they were your friends." Loki remarked, confused.

"Yeah, they are. But you're the enemy, and I'm clearly fraternizing with the enemy, and Clint is upset with you, to put it mild."

Loki looked at him and noticed that Tony was actually tense, jaw tightening, and decided staying quiet might be the best option until he further understood the situation.

The elevator opened and Tony walked out into the penthouse rumpus room, the lights coming up as he walked in. Natasha was sitting at the bar, waiting for them.

"Steve told us." She said by way of greeting.

"Yeah, hi Natasha, how was the thing with the guy in the place?" Tony wanted to know. "I've been great, thanks for asking."

She rolled her eyes then focused on Loki, expression changing to disbelief when he settled on lifting a hand and waving slowly. "Really, Tony? After all that happened?"

"Thor needed a favor. Where's Clint?"

And Clint was abruptly there, fading in from the background and not happy.

"Okay, guys, just… let's not get me in trouble with the Asgard, okay?" Tony put up his hands. "Which is what will happen if you kill him because we have an extradition treaty and he's their prisoner."

"Master of Puppets." Clint said flatly. Loki looked down at his shirt and looked up just in time to catch a fist to the face, staggering backwards into Tony's arms, hands flying up when blood started running immediately.

"Shit!" Tony caught him and stared at Clint, whose hands were clenched into fists at his sides. Loki had the back of one of his hands to his nose, the blood already running down that arm.

"You raped my mind. You have no idea what that feels like." Clint's voice was low, knuckles popping.

"Who says I don't?" Loki replied, catching his balance and standing on his own, hand staying at his nose. "Will it help if I say it wasn't personal?"

"Wow. You really are unbelievable." Natasha said.

Loki just held up a hand. "Wait your turn, my dear, I'm sure we'll have time for another game of words in a moment."

"Could you NOT dig the hole deeper?" Tony demanded.

"Ahem." And Pepper joined them, walking barefoot across the floor and calmly getting between Loki and Clint, pushing them apart and handing a towel to Loki at the same time. "That's enough."

Loki took the towel and folded it before putting it under his nose, lifting an eyebrow.

Pepper folded her arms and looked at him, then shook her head and looked at Clint. "Do you think for one instant that Tony would do anything to put you in danger?"

Clint blinked, leaning away from her slightly.

"She's right, I wouldn't. Not willingly. There's no threat here. I know this is probably a trigger for you, and I'm sorry, I was hoping we could avoid this entire situation but here we are." Tony said, brow drawn together, looking between Natasha and Clint. "Yes, you both hate him and you have more than enough reason but he is already a prisoner."

"Uh… is this going to stop? I can't heal myself. I'm trying." Loki's voice was quiet but was gaining a sharp edge of panic.

Everyone looked at him for a moment, then Tony sighed and grabbed one of his shoulders, guiding him to one of the chairs in the seating area and sitting him down, showing him how to lean so he wouldn't end up swallowing blood. "Doesn't look like he broke your nose though. Stay put." That said Tony rejoined the others, making sure to stay well within the distance radius.

"You could have called us." Natasha finally said, arms crossed.

"Yes because that would have gone over so much better. Perfectly, I'm sure." His voice was sour. "I am sorry, and I hope you two at least let me make it up to you, but he's on my leash for now and he leaves Monday. You don't have to be around him if you don't want to."

"That said, we're hoping to have everyone along for a dinner with Thor on Monday night." Pepper said brightly. "But, your call."

Clint and Natasha looked at each other, then looked at Pepper and Tony.

"We'll think about it." Clint finally said, eyes still narrowed.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Loki sat on the bathroom counter, wincing a bit as Pepper checked over his face. The blood flow had mercifully stopped, and he was quietly ashamed at how much it had bothered him. Being wounded in battle? It'd happened many times before, but what was so disorientating was that he had been unable to fix it. He'd just kept bleeding, feeling the stone in the collar grow colder as he tried to cast a heal spell and failed repeatedly.

How did these people live like this?

"Well, Tony's right. No broken nose but you might have one hell of a shiner tomorrow." Pepper said, wiping the last of the blood from his face with a washcloth.

"I almost hope I do. I'd rather like to see Thor's expression." Loki replied. "And this is a minor penance for the crime, really."

"Be glad he didn't snap your neck." Tony replied, leaning in the doorway. He'd already wiped the blood from Loki's arm and hand, and gingerly pulled Loki's shirt off to throw into the laundry. Biohazards everywhere, he thought in annoyance.

"Really, I don't think Clint would have flown that off the handle." Pepper replied, dropping the washcloths and towels in the hamper. "He has reserve you know."

"He also has anger, and I'm not going to begrudge him for that, he has every right to be pissed off." He sighed, scratching the back of his neck. The low level, pleasant buzz of the jagerbombs had worn off, as well as the adrenaline from the show and his really good fucking mood. "I'm just hoping I can make it up to him. He's kind of the distant and silent type but I like him a lot."

"Yet you're both in here, personally tending to the enemy." Loki observed, hands resting on the counter on either side of him. When they both looked at him and fished for words, he held up a hand, smiling. "Oh, don't worry on my account, this is only the closest anyone's come to worshipping me in your lifetimes anyway."

"I agree with Natasha. You are unbelievable." Tony said.

Loki started laughing, a deep belly laugh, reaching back and taking his hair down from the braid, combing his fingers through it to pull it out. His hair promptly frizzed out into manic waves. Pepper clapped her hand over her mouth but Tony didn't bother hiding it and started laughing his ass off.

"That is just adorable." Tony cackled.

"What?" Loki blinked, then twisted and looked at himself in the mirror, lifting an eyebrow at his reflection. "That's not my most attractive look, I must admit."

Pepper started giggling, then pouted when Loki snapped his hair around and it fell perfectly again. "Aw, you ruined it."

He only smiled and hopped off the counter, bare feet hitting the floor. "Well, I do like to look good when I'm not going to bed alone." He quirked an eyebrow. "Assuming that invitation is still good, of course."

Pepper and Tony shared a long look. He lifted an eyebrow, she quirked one in return, then they both looked back to Loki. "Depends. Are you going to behave?" Pepper wanted to know.

He grinned. "No. Are you going to make me behave, my dear?"

"Let me guess, better men and women than us have tried?" Tony lifted his eyebrows.

"Well, that I'm not sure about."

Loki blinked, half-awake in the dark bedroom. He was laying on his stomach, one arm looped around the pillow he had his face resting on. His still sore face, he mused, lifting his fingers and feeling the tenderness there. Well, it went with his currently sore body. He wasn't certain, but he had a theory that Tony and Pepper had attempted to either punish or murder him through intimate acts.

And now, here he was. Pinned to the bed. Not that he was complaining, mind you.

From what he could feel and see over his shoulders, Pepper had curled up along one of his sides to partly lay across his shoulders, head cushioned there and one arm thrown over him. Tony was sprawled out perpendicular to him, laying across the small of his back, one arm tossed over him just like Pepper. They were facing each other, and from what he could tell their near arms arranged so they were holding hands in their sleep. Any attempts to shift on his part had been met with sleepy disapproval. As near as he could tell, he was there until they saw fit to let him go.

Curious.

Three people in a bed was not exactly the most adventurous thing he'd done, intimately. After all, he counted among his children the stallion Sleipnir, and the great wolf Fenrir. It was however perhaps the first time his bedmates had been so adamant, even in their sleep, that he wasn't going anywhere. Or at least it had been so long he didn't feel like thinking back further. Long enough.

And Tony Stark with Pepper Potts? Interesting combination. Tony was a living storm of intelligence and ideas and chaos, and outside of the actual creation of inventions seemed to have a hard time with organization. So, Pepper Potts, organization, control, determination and frankly just a bit terrifying to Loki. When she'd informed him she'd destroy him if he hurt Tony, he'd honestly believed it. So she was a simple Midgardian, she'd find a way.

Of course these two were not simple Midgardians. Simple didn't belong on the same planet as these two.

He was a demigod, a thrown down Prince of Asgard, and he was being used as a pillow by two people he'd once thought as inferior to him, one of which he'd nearly succeeded in killing. It was all rather confusing, really, but he found himself not caring too much.

So he slept.

Tony twitched awake, blinking in the morning sunlight. He was asleep on his side, sheet pulled up to his waist, spooned up against Pepper. Loki, meanwhile, was snuggled against his back, face tucked against the back of his neck by the feel, long arm wrapped around them both. So basically he was sleeping between the best thing in his life and a gorgeous broken psycho who tried to conquer the planet. Just another day in the life of Tony Stark.

But he settled back down anyway, more than willing to lay there for a few more hours, then Loki bit the back of his neck. Again.

"You people sleep a lot." Loki muttered, snickering when Tony flailed a hand behind his head to swat at the other man only to miss repeatedly.

"Why do you keep biting me there?" Tony muttered.

"Seems a logical place to attack. Also convenient at the moment." Loki didn't move, instead blowing a line of frigid air across Tony's visible ear.

He jumped again, twisting to try to look at Loki because yeah, he remembered that from last night. "How do you do that?"

"Frost giant." Loki's unreal green eyes were half open, staring back lazily.

Tony looked at him, then rubbed his face with one hand. "Do you know how frustrating it is to associate with people who seem to operate outside of science?"

"Oh, my brother told me actually. You don't believe in any gods." Loki tilted his head, quirking an eyebrow.

"You're not a god. You're an alien, and something in you allows you to do this, we just don't know what yet." That's what he always told himself about Thor, anyway. Aliens fit into his worldview better than omnipotent world jumping beings living outside scientific law. Loki turned his nose up at this assertion.

"Pretty sure I would have noticed if Loki had a second jaw." Pepper's voice was a sleepy murmur.

Tony looked at her and lifted an eyebrow. "Alien in general, not Giger's Alien."

"Mmm." She rolled and propped up on her elbows to look at them both, smiling, hair falling in her face. "Are we getting up?"

He shrugged and pushed to a seated position, leaning back on his hands. "I'm awake. I've slept more in the last few days than the previous week, so…"

"Did I have something to do with that?" Loki wanted to know, also sitting up, not concerned at all about the sheet.

Tony blinked and realized he'd been sleeping on Loki in some way, shape or form for three nights in a row. "Potentially yes."

Pepper started laughing. "Oh please, Tony, you don't sleep at all when I'm gone unless you pass out from exhaustion or someone else sends you to bed. Of course you slept better having someone with you."

"Are you two ganging up on me?" He narrowed her eyes at her, then leaned back a bit when she got to her hands and knees, crouching like a cat and staring at him.

"That can be arranged." Loki replied, grinning, looking at Pepper for a second then adopting a similar pose.

"OH SHIT!" Tony laughed maniacally and dove for the edge of the bed, flailing a bit as he was tackled by both of them. "Mercy on the old man!"

"Yeah, you have a right to call yourself old." Loki snorted.

Pepper, at the same time, replied, "Now why would we do that?"

A bit overwhelmed but gleeful, Tony pulled them both down the rest of the way, still laughing and glad when they joined in.

"This is not what I expected when you said we were going to blow something up." Loki was sitting on the couch, pondering the controller in his hands and watching the screen respond as he manipulated it. He'd used his 'party trick' to put himself into sweat shorts and a plain shirt, mostly because it was what Tony happened to be wearing, though once he did so he saw the comfort advantage.

"Do you know how hard it is to legally blow up something in New York?" Tony replied. His own character had wandered off to go blow things up while Loki's character was starting to slowly walk around. "We probably couldn't get away with fireworks, honestly."

"I'm working on it." Pepper sat down with her laptop, wearing jean shorts and a tank top. "Honestly, we don't have many good options unless we want to drive a lot, and much as I'm sure you'd like to actually drive some Tony that seems a bit unfair to Loki."

"I'm amused that you're concerned about being unfair to the prisoner OW OW HEY OW!" Loki dropped the controller and laughed, struggling to defend himself against two swatting pairs of hands.

"She has a point, unfortunately. I may have to back out of that particular promise due to failure to think things through." Tony said after that altercation was over with. "Were we in California it'd be something else. I'd probably call MythBusters and ask for a favor, they blow stuff up all the time. But this city's harder to escape from and with everyone trying to blow holes in it people get kind of touchy."

"So, what I did wasn't exactly unique then." Loki said slowly, hands back on the controller and slowly guiding his character through the game, figuring out how to pick up additional weaponry. Meanwhile, on Tony's screen, he was in a space age jeep finding ramps to jump.

"Pepper we might have to start a list." Tony replied thoughtfully. "Well, you might win on building damage Loki. Until King Kong shows up anyway."

"One of the bad ones was a terrorist attack. Took down two skyscrapers. Huge mess, kind of a nationwide trauma." Pepper said, still on her laptop. "Then we have the heroes and villains."

"That guy that fought Spiderman, Doc Oc." Tony said. "That just annoyed the hell out of me. Builds some kind of sustainable fusion reactor that runs out of control and they try to drown it and it somehow works I still don't…"

"Tony." Pepper said in a warning voice. He trailed into grumbles and she smiled warmly at him, then looked at Loki. "He screamed at the television for a week solid about that."

"I shall try to be more impressive next time." Loki hmmed to himself, switching between the weapons he had.

"Sir, Steve Rogers and Bruce Banner are at the door." Jarvis said.

"Awesome, let them in." Tony grinned, driving his ingame vehicle past Loki's character, who promptly pivoted and blew the ever loving crap out of Tony's character.

Which was why the couch was dominated by a wrestling match when Bruce and Steve walked in, Pepper spectating and trying not to hurt herself laughing.

"Do I want to know?" Steve finally said. Bruce was struggling to keep a straight face, and failing.

"Oh. Hi guys." Tony said, looking up. "Our new friend is a video game shark and YOU ASSHOLE!" He ended abruptly when Loki cheerfully rolled to the side and dumped him on the rug before sitting back up and dusting his hands off, whistling.

Steve burst into laughter, walking over and bringing Bruce with him, displaying two flat boxes. "We brought donuts and coffee."

"You are forever welcome in my apartment. You guys joining us?" Tony wanted to know, still on the floor, rolling to a seated position and reaching to reclaim his controller. As an answer, Steve set the boxes on the coffee table, Bruce setting drink carriers of coffee next to it, and they grabbed the two other controllers, Steve taking Tony's seat on the couch and Bruce sitting on the floor in front of him.

"Is this how you spend your days, Tony?" Loki wanted to know as Tony restarted the match for four players, setting it to free for all.

"You mean when I'm not being Ironman, dealing with company business as Pepper wants me to, or working in the lab?" Tony replied, leaning back against one of Loki's legs.

"Or even sometimes sleeping?" Steve said, half smiling.

"Traitor."

Pepper giggled and helped herself to a donut, looking at the labels on the drinks and passing them out. Bruce had the only decaf of the bunch. The boys all positioned their cups at hand, Loki one handing his controller and holding the cup with the other, taking a long drink of the coffee with half an eye on the screen. This made everyone else stare at him.

"Told you he's a shark." Tony said, taking several swallows of his coffee then parking the cup next to his knee on the rug. "I have video of him whipping a Dance Dance Revolution machine. And he learned chopsticks in less than five minutes."

"I'm good with my hands." Loki replied, managing to make the comment sound simultaneously innocent and dirty as all hell.

"What happened to your eye?" Bruce wanted to know. "Nice shiner."

"Clint happened." Tony replied.

"Ah. Yes. That does make sense."

"Wow, that's my fault isn't it?" Steve said, his character crouched in a sniper position while he stretched and grabbed a donut. When Loki looked at him, he picked up the box and held it so Loki could get one, then held it down so Bruce and Tony could dig in.

"I would say it's Loki's fault for existing." Tony replied, snickering when that earned him a light kick from the subject of the discussion.

"I believe the saying your people would use is, 'I'm over it.'" Loki remarked, still somehow one handing the controller, he had it leaned on one thigh with his hand splayed over it, other hand holding his half eaten donut. Steve was looking at this arrangement and trying to figure out how it worked, let alone how Loki was doing so much damage in the game. "If he found striking me at all cathartic, well, I'll deal with the shiner. Doesn't mean I'll let him do it repeatedly mind you."

"That's fair." Now Bruce had turned in place, watching how Loki was handling the controller.

Loki looked between Bruce and Steve. "Do you two plan on actually playing this game?"

"Hey, Tony. I think we need to put Portal in and hand him the main controller." Bruce said.

He turned and looked at them, then at Loki, who was chewing donut slowly, still almost entirely one handing the controller, other hand occasionally dealing with the left shoulder buttons. "I agree."

And so, Sunday passed, not with explosions but lazily and in a group, eventually shifting their gathering up to the penthouse gathering area once Tony threw some actual clothes on. It was honestly amazing him just how comfortable they were all getting with Loki being there. If Steve and Bruce had noticed that Loki, Tony, and Pepper were basically ablaze with afterglow, they were polite enough not to say anything. Pepper took the opportunity to tend to some stuff on her computer while they played, sticking with the group and there and smiling but getting work done as well.

After a while, Tony gave up and used his phone to take video of the bizarre way Loki was handling the controller, not worried about catching Loki's face in the shot: fuck it, he was going to upload it to their youtube once Loki and Thor had headed out. Let Fury scream. Loki dealt with the video camera with dignity, considering.

"And how many people would see that if you put it on the internet?" He wanted to know, continuing to cheerfully execute a perfect run of Portal.

"I dunno, our videos get a lot of hits, but you're not an Avenger." Tony shrugged.

"I'd actually kind of like a better explanation on the whole internet thing." Loki kept his eyes on the screen, flicking the camera view around and considering the puzzles ahead of him. "I'm catching that it's some kind of device or invention that allows a bunch of those…" He nodded his head sideways at Pepper's laptop. "To communicate with each other, even at great distance. That right?"

"Very concise explanation actually." Bruce said.

"So, you take recordings of things… sparring, games you play… and put them on this internet thing for people all around the world to see. Why? Certainly these videos don't necessarily show you at your best. Why willfully expose weakness?"

"That's kind of interesting actually." Steve said, at the bar getting himself a beer. "I guess it's to show that we aren't perfect. That we're human."

"This from Mr. Super Soldier, the monument to science and enduring symbol of freedom still adored by all." Tony said. Steve threw his bottle cap at him. "But yeah, he's got the right of it. We're trying to remain at least a bit accessible to the public. Weird as it's going to seem coming out of my mouth, we don't want to come off as aloof. We need their support. Frankly, there wasn't a whole lot of support from the powers that be for the Avengers Initiative and I was never supposed to be one in the first place."

"He actually sells a shirt that says 'I support the Avengers Initiative' down in the lobby of this building during business hours." Bruce remarked. He was also at the bar, but he was digging for popcorn, eventually finding what he was looking for. "Profit went to help repair the damage to the city."

"It's still rather bizarre to me. On Asgard loudly braying your vices and weaknesses would be asking for them to be exploited during battle, so eradicating them or hiding them is a survival tactic." Loki shook his head slightly, shifting his hands to two hand the controller, shifting on the sofa to fold his legs under himself.

"Oh, that'll happen here too." Pepper said, looking up from her laptop. "More often than not, in fact, but nobody is perfect."

"She comes close though." Tony said, smiling when Pepper swatted at him. "Point is, the public knowing that we're not perfect either makes them feel better. And our flaws make us who we are just as much as our strengths."

"Congratulations, Tony, I think that's the humblest thing I've ever heard you say." Clint said, wandering into the room and heading directly for the bar, then pausing and staring at the TV screen. "… Is he playing Portal?"

"No. He's kicking ass at Portal." Tony replied. "Glad to see you're in a better mood, Clint."

"Being upset isn't going to change anything." He opened a beer. "You need to break down and get some beer taps."

"That would require drinking enough beer to keep the taps usable." When everyone looked at him, Tony put his hands up. "Point taken. I'll look into it."

Clint walked over to the conversation pit as Steve did, moving around to half sit, half lean on the sofa arm by Loki, taking a drink of his beer and looking down at him. Loki glanced up at him for a moment, pausing the game, quirked an eyebrow, then went back to what he was doing. "Wow. I left a bruise, and Bruce didn't."

"When Bruce's alter ego gave me a talking to, my magic was working. Right now, it is not." Loki replied, eyes on the screen. "I have little to no ability to recover wounds right now. It's a bit jarring."

"So what is this trip then, a peek into the human condition?" Clint wanted to know, looking at Tony.

"You ask me like I know." Tony replied. "Pretty sure it's simple as Thor wanting to see Jane. No offense to your brother Loki but Thor is not a subtle or complicated man."

Loki snickered. "My brother is strong, loyal, good hearted, and dim. So no offense taken."

"Well, that's kind of cold." Pepper said.

"I can't even argue because we've taken to calling him Thor Brodinson." Steve said.

"He is rather the closest to a frat guy we have, isn't he?" Bruce said, bringing over a large bowl of oil popped just buttered popcorn and wedging himself into the middle of the group so everyone could reach, which meant he was squeezed between Tony and Loki.

"Jarvis, note to self, take Thor to a frat row during a game night." Tony remarked, helping himself to the popcorn.

"Noted, but I'm not sure that's a wise course of action, sir." Jarvis replied.

"Have you been playing this game straight through? Because you're nearly done." Clint said, watching the screen.

"Yeah, he has." Steve said. "Though I vote for a multiplayer game after."

"Unrealistic combat might level the playing field." Pepper suggested. "I propose Mario Kart."

"Second." Tony said.

"Motion carried." Bruce ended.

"Are you people for real?" Loki wanted to know, prompting a wave of laughter.

The day passed, and Clint stuck around, to everyone else's silent surprise. Eventually food was discussed and ordering in dismissed, the group (including Natasha!) piling into a variety of cars and all making into to a soul food place that was known to them. Tony kept a master list of restaurants they liked on his phone, prioritized by style of food and what places put up with them the best.

"Everyone but Thor and hopefully we'll get to catch dinner with him tomorrow." Steve said, looking at the group. They'd pushed two tables together and figured out a seating arrangement. Tony had put himself between Loki and Pepper, Loki had put him himself on an end seat just because he figured that was easier on everyone. Bruce took the seat across from him and everyone else filled in as they wanted.

The restaurant had long since gotten used to them, and was one of the ones that had asked for signatures. So they'd signed a menu, on the proviso that it wasn't to be sold on eBay. It was framed on the wall, instead.

"Yeah, I like this kind of get together, we need to do it more often." Tony replied. This got a round of agreement, some knocking their soda glasses together in a half assed toast.

Loki stayed quiet most of the meal.

"Something's been bothering you. Mind telling us what?" Tony wanted to know as they rode the elevator up.

"Thor's picking me up tomorrow." Loki replied, hands in the pockets of his summoned jeans, staring off into space.

"Yeah. Here I thought you'd be glad to be rid of us." Tony lifted an eyebrow at him, snickering when Loki reached over and cuffed him upside the head lightly without looking. "Hah, hah, you like us."

"Yes, unfortunately." Loki stepped out on the correct floor, clothes changing as he walked, shoes disappearing and outfit settling into the sweat shorts and plain t-shirt of earlier.

"Unfortunately?" Tony wanted to know, toeing out of his shoes at the door, and caught a warning look from Pepper, staring back at her in confusion.

"Oh, I don't know." He sighed and shrugged, flopping on the couch and picking up the book he was working on, obviously retreating into himself.

Tony looked at this, checked the time on his phone, then shrugged, fetching his tablet laptop and walking over to the couch. "Hey, move."

"Stark…" Loki replied in an exhausted voice.

"Oh, that again, just sit up for a second." When Loki did, Tony sat down heavily then tugged Loki down to lean on him. Loki blinked then shifted, laying down curled up, lead propped partly on Tony's near leg, sighing. Pepper reappeared in comfortable clothing, watching them for a second, Tony was holding the tablet with one hand, the other slowly stroking through Loki's hair. So she got her laptop and came over, sitting on the other side of the couch with her back to the arm and the laptop on her lap, sitting so her legs partly tangled with Loki's, effectively nestling him between them as they relaxed.

Time passed slowly and quietly. Pepper eventually asked Jarvis to put on some ambient music on low and to turn the fireplace on. That, and the perimeter lights dimming, seemed to isolate the little seating area.

It was Pepper who noticed it first, Tony was lost in science articles on his tablet. Loki was shaking, just barely, but full body. He'd mostly closed the book so he could lean his face against the hands holding it, breath coming in shallow trembles, eyes pressed shut. She leaned and reached over, putting a hand on his side to try to get a response and only better able to feel the shakes wracking him. "Hey."

Tony looked up, saw she was talking to Loki, and looked down at him, blinking when he saw the change. Loki let his eyes open a bit, which was a mistake because the tears started to run, and Tony pulled him up and into his arms, one arm around him the other cradling the back of his head so Loki's face was tucked against his shoulder. "Look, uh, you don't have to say anything. But we'll listen if you do."

Loki's response was a frustrated snarl that trailed into a choked off, muffled sob. Pepper displaced her laptop and moved, wedging herself between Loki's body and the back of the couch and wrapping over so she held him too, looking at Tony and letting her brow furrow. He returned the look and shrugged with the non-occupied shoulder, he didn't know either.

Loki stayed quiet until his breathing was close to normal, and only then said something, voice coming out in a tone that almost seemed disconnected from the world. "To come here, and expect barely veiled hatred and only begrudging tolerance, only to be accepted… and not know why… and to want to expect a trap because that's the only thing that makes sense but that's a falsehood…"

"Well, Clint and Natasha could probably take you or leave you." Tony said. "The rest of us, yeah. Guilty. You're managing to fit in quite well."

"But, why? I tried to kill you all."

"I don't feel like I have a right to judge, Steve is one of the most accepting, respectful and non-judgmental people on the planet, Bruce is starting to like how your brain works and he likes that you push back at me." Tony shrugged.

"It would have been easier for me if you'd all treated me coldly. Because then I would have left without a care in the world." Loki tried to push away and got held tighter for his trouble by both of them. "And, you two? It is… painfully confusing that you want me here. I'm not certain I've ever been held so insistently by anyone in my lifetime, and I am going to have to walk away from you both for what may be the rest of your lives. And I can do nothing. Is this to be part of my punishment, now?"

Silence reigned again, and they held him tight, only relaxing until he stopped trying to pull away and relaxed limp in their arms, letting himself be held.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Loki was half awake, lying on his side trapped between Pepper and Tony. Tony's height discrepancy (he and Pepper were both several inches taller when everyone was barefoot) made for some adjusting, but they'd worked it out. He'd found himself curled partly up, face tucked against Pepper's chest above her breasts, Tony wrapped around his back. Both held him, their grips solid and their breathing calm. The ambient music still played low in the bedroom. Hell, they were all still partly dressed.

He still didn't know what to think and they weren't answering him, beyond 'because we like you.' And it was that which made him goggle at how Midgardians worked, mentally. Apparently to these two, liking him meant the situation he was in now. Or maybe it was one of those words that meant different things depending on context. Either way, when he'd shown pain, something he was agonizingly embarrassed about, they'd been there.

Loki was living in a countdown before he was returned to his silent, tranquil forest prison, but he felt oddly light as air. He was in a safe place, warm, welcomed, cared for. Being able to just relax, and stop worrying, was a luxury he hadn't had in some time.

"You really don't sleep much do you." Tony's voice was a murmur, his voice the only indicator he was awake.

"How'd you know I was awake?" Loki murmured back, not moving.

"Because I could practically hear you thinking." He shifted, goatee scuffing against Loki's shoulder blade a bit. "Do you feel better?"

"Yes." He smiled, twisting in place a bit to try to see Tony. Tony responded by levering himself up on one elbow, returning the gaze and smiling.

"What is it with Asgardian eyes, anyway?" Tony wanted to know.

"It's because we're magic." And he rolled, reaching out and pulling the shorter man into a kiss that Tony practically dove into. Loki murmured into it and let his eyes close, fingers of one hand tracing along the edge of the arc reactor and smiling at the noticeable shudder that traveled through the other man's body. Who would have thought that Stark could feel things just fine through the machine in his chest? So he drug his fingernails, one on the metal and one on the skin right at the edge.

Tony broke the kiss and squirmed, muffling his laughter into Loki's shoulder. "You either need to stop that or let me get naked."

"Do you two sleep?" Pepper's sleepy voice wanted to know, sitting up partway and looking at them. "Getting naked without me?"

"Not yet." Loki grinned at her over his shoulder. "How does he feel through metal?"

"I don't, jackass, I feel it resonating through my ribcage." Tony snorted and sat up, sticking out his tongue. "Doesn't take a lot for me to feel it though."

"Heh. Boys." She leaned back on her elbows, looking between them and smiling.

"That sounded like a challenge, somehow." Loki observed.

"Yes. Yes it did." Tony agreed. So Loki reached over and scooped her up, moving her between them to much laughter and some mock-protest squirming, the trio leaning together sitting on the bed.

"So how come you never play with my hair?" Tony wanted to know, checking in the mirror to make sure he'd done a decent job shaving.

"Because you barely have hair, Stark, grow it out and maybe she will." Loki called back, sitting on the edge of the bed with his eyes mostly closed. Pepper had taken it upon herself to brush his hair out after they had all showered, and was now trying to decide on a style to put in. He'd already shot down side braids and a bun, so she was now working on a reverse Viking braid, or so she said.

"No, Tony, don't. Horrible idea." Pepper said.

"What, me with long hair?" He wanted to know, emerging from the bathroom putting a shirt on.

"Your hair is hard enough to control as it is." She smiled at him though.

"I think it's part of his charm." Loki replied.

"My charm, or my insanity?" Tony replied.

"Yes." Said Loki and Pepper in unison, and Tony grinned at them, walking over and sitting next to Loki, watching Pepper braid his hair.

"So, what's the plan for today then? We have, what, seven or eight hours. We could do something." He said, looking at his phone to check the time. "Assuming an evening pickup, he didn't exactly specify a time."

"He's got a phone if we're not here." Pepper replied. "Well, we definitely need to get food at some point."

"We could go see Lady Liberty or something, I've only been out there while flying." Tony said.

"Tourist traps." She shook her head. "It's summertime, there's got to be something going on."

"There appears to be a music and food festival this week." Jarvis said.

"Outside would be nice." Loki agreed, voice mild, eyes still closed.

Tony narrowed his eyes at Loki at the voice tone. "It'd be a shame if you behaved the whole weekend and acted up today you know."

"Here I thought you both enjoyed it when I didn't." He replied, starting to turn his head until Pepper gave his hair a yank to remind him she wasn't done with the braid yet. "If you keep pulling my hair like that I will be forced to take your clothes back off, dear."

"Is that a promise, or a threat?" Pepper wanted to know, smiling.

"Oh, both, of course." He smirked. "Relax, Tony, I have no intention of breaking my record, and have I lied to you once yet this trip?"

"Not yet." Tony admitted, thinking about it.

"You two, I swear." Pepper clicked her tongue, finishing the braid off and putting a hair tie on it. "All done."

"Us two? What have we done, pray tell?" Loki wanted to know, opening his eyes. Pepper just rolled her eyes, shifting to sit on the edge of the bed by Tony.

"So, that music festival, what genre, Jarvis?" Tony wanted to know.

"Rock and Blues, according to the information I have, however, it is noted that other genres will be present."

"I can work with that."

"You're a shit of an epic level, you know that right?" Tony said, handing out ice cream cones.

Loki gave him an innocent look. "I have no idea what you mean."

As Tony had been driving, Loki had decided to alter his party trick clothes. Apparently he could indeed create patterns when he put an effort into it, because he was now wearing a black t-shirt that said "I support the Avengers Initiative" in green on the front in gothic lettering. The back was dominated by a motif of antlers over some kind of tribal pattern, it was done in green and silver and was actually a shirt Tony would have sold in a heartbeat if it wasn't technically in support of, you know, the villain.

"I'm pretty sure blood would spurt out Fury's nose if he saw you wearing that." Tony decided

"I'd like to see that." And Loki molested his ice cream cone with his tongue, neatly destroying any trains of thought Tony, Pepper, or several people nearby had at that moment.

Eventually Tony got himself back together and snapped his fingers in front of Loki's face to get his attention. "Hey. Keep it work safe. There's kids around." Loki pouted in reply.

"So, when they called you the Silvered Tongue, were the real reasons left off the books?" Pepper asked.

"You've read more about me than he has, apparently." Loki grinned, nodding at Tony. "And I'll let you decide that, you'd both know personally after all."

"Am I the only one aware we're in the middle of a park? Hello?" Tony asked.

"You're no fun at all." Loki pouted again, which was a ridiculous expression on the demigod's face. He was in summoned clothes, and he'd actually altered the cut of his pants as he walked. How people around them hadn't noticed they'd gone from carpenter to boot cut to holy shit TAILORED perfectly was a mystery to Tony. His footwear had suffered a similar series of swap outs, he was now in nondescript black boots. That with the knockoff Avengers shirt, not tucked in, made for a pretty generic outfit, but Loki wore it like they were royal robes or the finest suit. Guy had poise most dancers couldn't touch, Tony mused.

"Yeah, yeah, you haven't been complaining about that the last few days have you." He punched Loki's shoulder with his free hand as they started to walk through the park.

"No, no I haven't. I have been enjoying myself, I won't lie. This has been a very enjoyable little vacation from hell. I may have to actually thank my brother, if I can manage to make those words pass my lips in his presence."

"I'm still not sure I want to know details, should I just assume your family is messed up?" Tony wanted to know, working on his ice cream.

"That is one way to put it." Loki's voice was sour.

"I imagine that kind of long lifespan would either lend itself to a lot of patience, or total psychosis." Pepper mused out loud, then blinked. "No offense meant."

"None taken!" Loki threw back his head and laughed. "Because I agree. Though my brother seems the grand exception. He is neither patient nor psychotic."

"He broke a table once at a restaurant asking for another of what he'd had. The man does not know his own strength sometimes." Tony licked ice cream off his hand. They'd come to a stop under a tree, watching the people move around them. In the background a blues band played, and some dreg of memory made him think it was bayou blues. In the lazy, increasing heat of the late morning and the haze of the city, it certainly set the mood.

_I put a spell on you, because you're mine. You better stop the things that you do, I ain't lyin'_

"That I can attest to, we used to practice together." Loki was watching the crowd, though he was clearly off in memories. "I learned to dodge rather quickly."

"I can imagine."

Some kids wandered by, paused, looked at them, and one walked up and silently held a fist out. Tony fist bumped him agreeably, shared a nod, and the kid wandered off with his friends again.

"Philanthropist, hedonist, narcissist, good with children." Loki mimed as if writing on something.

"A diverse resume is the key to success." Tony grinned, then looked at Pepper. "You okay? You're not saying much."

"That's because I'm having too much fun watching the two of you." She smiled, biting into her waffle cone. "Not the first time, either."

Loki snickered.

"You two are going to be the death of me, aren't you." Tony said, saying it as a statement, not a question.

"Oh, but isn't that a fitting end to Tony Stark? Should not your epitaph read that it was not battle that finally ended you but failure of the heart from sex?" Loki jacked an eyebrow.

"Forgive me if I do not like you talking about killing me, no matter the method. That said, yes." He couldn't even argue the point, as they started slowly walking again, walking in the direction of the food and music. The crowd largely didn't notice them, but that was the nice thing about New York. New Yorkers barely noticed if you blew up something next to them, and if you did, they'd put it on their FaceBook or something.

"When I was mad at him years ago I used to write fake obituaries for him." Pepper remarked.

"What?" Tony said. This was honestly news to him.

"Oh, this was years ago, when you couldn't keep your parties out of the gossip rags." She wove a hand. "It was a creative way to vent and I could continue being professional with you. I had dozens of the damn things though they were mostly variations on the same theme."

Loki was cackling with glee. Tony just smiled and shook his head, finishing his ice cream. "Let me guess, many variations of dying in a cocaine fueled orgy?"

"Something like that." Pepper smiled a bit. "Sometimes skydiving was involved."

"Well, I did have a penchant for making your life hard."

"Did?"

"You two courting makes the most sense of anything I've seen on this little trip. Just so you know." Loki ate the last of his ice cream cone and licked ice cream off his hand.

Tony was pretty sure he heard a woman nearby whimper. Of course people were looking at Loki, and he didn't exactly blame whoever that was either. "Dude? Would you stop that?"

"Well, now I have to, I've run out of ice cream."

He stood there a moment, then looked at Pepper. "Our mission today is to keep him away from popsicles and hotdogs."

"Agreed."

Eventually they ran across a Jamaican food stall and got food there, pulling up a patch of relatively untrampled grass to watch the band while they ate. In a crowd of people doing similar, they were utterly ignored, and for Tony it was oddly freeing. Because he was able to sit and be comfortably close with these two people in his life, and not worry too much about people taking pictures of him for the moment, swapping forkfuls of what they'd got with each other so they could all try each other's orders.

And afterward, just sitting there a while, leaning back on the heels of his hands, Pepper sitting leaning on him slightly and Loki sprawled out on his back on his other side, he'd found he wouldn't mind if time simply slid to a halt, in one of these moments. This was just fine, near perfect really. Even the music was agreeable, because it just worked so well with the mood.

He wasn't sure how long they stayed there, but eventually, it was his cell phone playing ACDC insistently that broke it up, and the strident tones of Thunderstruck were like an ice pick, right to the chest, that reality was calling.

"Thor?" Pepper asked as he dug his phone out of one of his back pockets.

"Yep." He answered it and put it on speakerphone. "Thor, man, how was your weekend?"

"My weekend was marvelous, Man of Iron!" Thor cheerfully boomed, nearly overloading the speaker on Tony's cell phone.

Modern goddamn technology and Thor still feels the need to yell. Tony shook his head in wonder. "Glad to hear it." Seeing Loki had sat up and was looking at the phone, Tony put his elbow into Loki's side, hard. Loki grunted in protest and looked at him, Tony gestured at the phone with his free hand because say hi to your older brother, already.

Loki blew out a sigh. "Afternoon, Thor."

There was a long, long silence, broken by voices the phone didn't quite catch, then Thor came back on, voice somehow cautious, quieter now. "Loki?"

"No. I'm his evil twin." Loki said drolly.

"Aren't you the evil twin?" Tony wanted to know.

"Shut it, Stark." Loki made a face at him, shaking his head.

There was another silence, then Thor started laughing, a warm joyous rolling sound. "You have no idea how good it is to hear your voice, after such silence. Has Tony been taking good care of you?"

"My stay here has been … cathartic." Loki finally said. "When can we expect you back to New York?"

"A matter of a few hours, I should think. I thought I would at least try to give you some warning."

"Well, while we have you on the phone, how tight is your schedule?" Pepper asked. "Because we're thinking about going to dinner, the whole group."

"Yeah, man, it's been a while. You down for some seafood before you head back to Asgard?" Tony wanted to know. "Should be everyone, haven't gotten total commitment from Clint or Natasha though."

"That sounds like a marvelous idea!" Thor's voice was back to the borderline phone damaging boom. "I shall meet you all at Stark Tower!"

"You got it, see you there." Tony said, hanging up as Thor did. "I wonder if he dialed or Jane did."

"He's not that ignorant about how his phone works." Pepper clicked his tongue.

"Really? How many phones have we had to replace for him?" He shook his head and looked at Loki, who was now sitting cross legged, elbows on knees and hands laced together, looking at them with a carefully blank expression.

"Would you two understand… If I said, I just wish to return to the tower and spend my last few free hours with you?" Loki finally said, slowly, looking away.

"Yeah. That's just fine." Tony finally said, getting to his feet and offering hands down to Pepper and Loki, helping them up and keeping their hands, lacing their fingers together as they walked back in the direction of Tony's car.

They barely got Loki through the door of the apartment before he was on them, desperate grabbing hands and hard needy embraces, because apparently if he had only a few hours left, Loki was going to make the most of it. Tony and Pepper couldn't argue, hell they agreed, only too willing to haul Loki back to Tony's bed. It took a long time for Loki to wind down, eventually clinging to both of them and shivering, weary muscles and too many emotions.

But by the time Thor showed up, they'd managed to get back through the shower again and be presentable. Tony had found a backpack he'd had lying around and packed Loki's clothes and books into it for him, which seemed to amuse the demigod. And Loki seemed to have a point, in normal appearing summoned clothes and a backpack, he could have almost passed for a college student. Almost.

Thor found them in the rooftop rumpus room, a James Bond movie on the screen and the rest of the Avengers assembled. They knew he was coming of course as the weather suddenly worsened, Loki looking up with a hunted expression, shrinking into the couch a bit. Tony patted his shoulder and stood, walking over to the door and opening it as rain came down briefly and Thor landed, shoving his hair out of his eyes. "Hey, get in here. Welcome back."

"Glad to be back, Man of Iron!" Thor replied, striding forward and catching Tony in a one armed bear hug that popped about half his spine then setting him back down, stepping fully into the rumpus room grinning. "Avengers!"

"Hey, Thor." Steve said, grinning ear to ear, as everyone looked up. Loki settled for peeking over the top of the couch. "How was your weekend?"

"A very welcome visit was had." Thor replied, all sunshine and summer.

Pepper started kicking Loki in the shin, and he looked at her and shook his head. She stared, and he sighed, getting to his feet and shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans, walking around the couch. "Brother."

Thor stopped and just looked at him for a moment, then was across the room, taking Loki up in his arms in a two armed bear hug. "Brother!"

Loki made a resigned noise and hung there, hugging back with one arm and offering a raised middle finger to the rest of the room, which was in various stages of laughter and glee. "Yes, yes, but do you mind?"

"Never!" Thor put him down and put him to arm's length, appraising him, then lifting an eyebrow. "Rather the last shirt I ever thought I'd see you wearing."

"Call it an in joke." Loki managed a strained smile, he'd summoned the knockoff Avengers Initiative shirt back.

Thor turned back to Tony, who'd recovered enough from Thor's overenthusiastic greeting to walk over and join the conversation pit. "I told you that you were good with people."

"Loki and I get along rather well actually, when we're not trying to murder each other." Tony replied, mustering a shrug because he had no desire to explain the particulars.

"Yeah, no shit." Clint said.

"Apparently so because this is the healthiest I have seen my brother in a long time." Thor happily patted both of Loki's shoulders then let him go. "They sent me videos of you, and I am so sorry Loki, I had no idea you were in such pain. I will do what I can to help you."

Loki stared at him for a long time, then said, "You have already done more than enough. I will endure."

Thor nodded once then turned to the rest of the group. "I was told of dinner plans, is that still so?"

"Yes. I called ahead, to make sure we'll get a large table." Pepper said. Though she typically spent her time dealing with Stark Industries, when she wasn't she found herself to be the organizer of Avengers dinners and movie nights. It was a harder task than it sounded, but it was usually equally rewarding.

Thor clapped his hands together. "Splendid! It has been some time since we all got to have a meal together. When is this reservation for?"

"We got a while, yet." Bruce replied, so Thor came around and claimed an empty seat, eagerly starting conversations with the others.

Tony, meanwhile, stepped over to Loki and just looked at him. "Okay, tell me something. How did you NOT know you were adopted?"

Loki looked at him, then looked at Thor. "It's a mystery to us all. You should have seen him when he was a teenager, he's settled down a bit over the years."

"I can't even fathom that. Come on. Join the party." He managed a smile, and was relieved when Loki returned it.

The restaurant ground to a halt when the group showed up, which wasn't uncommon. But then, all eight of them stood out on their own really, travelling as a pack was a sure way to get a lot of attention if not some outright recognition. The hostess of the restaurant knew Pepper though and happily led them to one of the large rectangular tables, letting them get arranged and passing out menus, happily talking about specials. Then a waitress showed up to ask if they knew what they wanted to drink, looking around at them with wide eyes but taking their orders dutifully.

Tony, meanwhile, had produced a sharpie from one of his pants pockets, cheerfully writing on one of the seafood hammers. Loki let his first real grin escape since Thor showed up, visibly relaxing a bit when Tony gave Mini-Mjolnir over to him. "You remembered."

"I told you it was a great idea."

So Loki reached across the table and passed it to Thor, grinning. "Here you are, brother."

Thor took it, looked at it, then looked at Tony and Loki, both of whom were struggling to maintain straight faces. "You two are ganging up on me, aren't you?" He said this in a remarkably light voice.

"No. Never." Tony said, maintaining the worst poker face of all time. The rest of the group was watching this, amused.

"So, which of you planned this?" Thor wanted to know.

Tony and Loki pointed at each other in unison, each faking innocent expressions.

Steve started laughing helplessly, Clint settled for rubbing his eyes and shaking his head. "You two are enabling each other."

Loki broke down and started laughing, helplessly slouching back in his chair and grinning at Thor. Thor laughed in response, tossing the hammer down gently on the plate.

"Fair jest, I suppose." Thor grinned. "And it is good to hear you laugh."

"Oh, I've been laughing it's just not the laughter you like to hear." Loki grinned at him.

"Well, when you laugh like a blood crazed hyena it is a bit jarring." Thor said with dignity, happily accepting his drink from the waitress who'd appeared. He'd gone straight for the coffee.

So had Loki. "I do not laugh like a blood crazed hyena." He turned his nose up at the idea.

"Do you even listen to yourself, brother?"

"Yup. They're related." Bruce said, not looking up from his menu. Natasha snickered.

"Of course we are." Thor said, looking at Bruce.

"You take that back!" Loki said at the same time.

The rest of the table started laughing, and Tony patted Loki's back, who managed a long suffering smile.

"Remember kids, no death threats at the able, too many witnesses." Pepper said, sipping her iced tea.

"You're a lot better at reining these guys in than I am, outside of battle at least." Steve observed.

"That's because they're all scared of me." Pepper replied, setting her menu down.

"Entirely true." Tony said. "Steve, you'd just smack the crap out of me. Pepper, meanwhile, can actually bring the pain."

"She did help keep me in line." Loki said this more to himself than anything else, staring at the menu. He recognized some of the names of the animals used from the sushi bar, but the preparations were new to him. Thor looked at him and lifted an eyebrow at what he said.

The waitress stepped back over, and went around the table for orders. Loki looked at Tony helplessly, so Tony leaned over and made some suggestions cheerfully. A lot of food was ordered, and also somehow eaten, in what Tony would later look back on as one of the more bittersweet occasions of his life.

Because all his friends were here, and everyone was in a good mood, and the food was great, but Loki was sitting next to him putting on a resigned smile, and he might never see Loki again after today.

It was going to take a lot of flying and booze (though not together) to deal with this, Tony realized. But, that was life, and he wouldn't erase the past few days for the world.

Loki was back in his Asgardian clothes, carrying the backpack on one shoulder. Tony had purposefully left the bag in his apartment, because it was an excuse to get Loki separate for a few minutes before he and Thor left. But once there, he found himself unable to find words, watching Loki slowly pace the apartment once, clothes shifting to the green and black outfit, then pick up the bag from the coffee table, walking back over.

"This break has been an unexpected pleasure, and I have you to thank for it." Loki finally said, looking down at him, smiling sadly.

"Yeah, right back at you." Tony roped him into a tight hug, rocking up on his tiptoes to put his face into Loki's neck for a split second. Loki returned the hold, leaning his cheek against the top of Tony's head then moving to give him a warm soft kiss, which Tony dissolved into happily, letting his eyes close for a moment before backing it off, their foreheads leaning together. "Come back, sometime. Preferably while I'm still alive."

Loki made a noise between a laugh and a sob, squeezing a bit tighter then letting him go. "If I can. Let's not keep the others waiting."

They stood together during the elevator ride, fingers loosely laced together and leaning on each other and stepping away as the elevator opened up, Tony leading the way. Everyone else was already there waiting. "Sorry about that, guys."

"Not a problem at all." Thor replied cheerfully, lifting an eyebrow at Loki's backpack.

"Tony bought me books." Loki said quietly, hand tightening on the shoulder strap it'd come to rest on.

Thor nodded agreeably, walking over to Tony and clapping his shoulders. "I thank you for this favor."

"Nah. Anytime, he was fun to have around." Tony managed a grin, holding out the arm with the cuff. "Take care of him."

"As much as I can." Thor did whatever it was to the cuff to release it from Tony's wrist, returning it to his own.

Pepper meanwhile had stepped over to Loki, giving the ponytail of his braid a fond tug. "Come back soon."

"I'll try." Loki smiled.

"Thank you for the hospitality, everyone. I'll try to return more often." Thor said cheerfully, stepping up even with Loki and getting a chorus of goodbyes in return. "Shall we, brother?"

"If we must." Loki replied in a resigned tone, following Thor out to the balcony.

"Hey!" Tony called as Loki stood in the doorway, making Loki look over his shoulder. "Behave yourself."

Loki grinned from ear to ear. "Never." And he let the door swing closed behind him, stepping up even with Thor and gone in a crack of thunder. Just like that.

Tony sleepwalked through the following days. That night he more or less fell into Pepper's arms in bed, unable to find words. Neither could she. What was there to say? That the bed was too large, too lonely, the apartment sharply silent? That Loki was undeniably the wrong guy for them to miss, but they did? So they held each other, and dealt with it. After all, it was nothing that could be fixed.

Inevitably, Fury found out and that reaming was just one Tony had stood there and taken. In fact, Tony stayed so silent it started freaking Fury out, and in the end all he could do was shrug and say it'd been a favor for Thor and there had been no trouble at all. And Fury just stared at him, and dismissed him.

He went on a long flight after that, no direction or course in mind, just flying. He hadn't been in the suit a while, for flight at least, and doing so again was oddly reassuring. He didn't bother gearing down immediately when he returned, sitting on the edge of the landing pad in his suit with the visor up, watching the sun set vacantly.

Then Spidey was sitting next to him, legs also hanging over the edge and looking at him curiously. "Hey. Where's your new friend?"

"Thor took him home." Tony replied.

Spiderman shrugged, staring out at the sunset. "He'll be back. Only the good die young."

Tony smiled, and watched the sun dip under the horizon.


End file.
